Journey to the Center of the Earth - Movie Review

OK, to be honest I went to see this movie because I was so impressed by the 3D technology in the movie Monster House that I wanted to see if it was the same technology and if it was just as good. The technology did not disappoint. The movie . . . was cute.

A bit about the technology. The trick to getting 3D is to send different images to each eye. When you see real objects, those that are closer appear to shift position slightly from one eye to the other, and the brain interprets this as being close. Old 3D used red and blue or green filters so to send one image to the left eye and a different one to the right, but this threw off colors and had other problems. Disney and other places use linearly polarized light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_polarization) at right angles, but tilting your head causes the images to blur. The new technology uses circularly polarized light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_polarization). As a result, you can tilt your head any which way and the picture stays clear. (Though it can confuse your brain in interpreting the 3D if you tilt too far.)

So yes it was the new technology (REALD 3D, www.reald.com) and I managed to get three pairs of glasses in the deal so now I have 3 left handed polarizer filters and 3 right handed. Cool beans.

Unfortunately, they spent a lot of time just showing cheesy 3D effects of things coming out at you. I realize that is what is neat about 3D, but it seemed like they were trying to hard rather than just letting the 3D speak for itself. The show's premise is of course ridiculous and the execution is not a lot better. But the 3D is great and the action is fun. (Oh, and the mountain guide is cute.)

I think it is worth seeing for the 3D experience (send your glasses to me if you don't want them) and it is a fun movie. However, if you get a chance to see Monster House, Beowulf, or Chicken Little in 3D (they appear to have all been redone in reald 3d) I would choose those just because they are better movies to begin with. (U2 3D, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, and Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas have also been done, but I haven't seen them in 2D or 3D so I can't speak to the movie quality.)