Driving by his deep will of discovery and gaining fame, prof. Lendenbrook, a great and ambitious scientist, takes a student and an explorer in a journey to the center of the earth, in order to discover an Icelandic volcano, the thing that risks their life, as they meet with dangerous and historical creatures.
It's really not very striking make-believe, when all is said and done.
LarsenOnFilm
June 23, 2008
Twentieth Century Fox pulled out all the stops - and the giant mushrooms - for this silly spectacle...
Groucho Reviews
May 22, 2012
Fun for the whole family, and—instead of the 2008 3-D version's Brendan Fraser—offers James freakin' Mason, who can pull off urbane and befuddled at the same time. [Blu-ray]
By standards of the time, the special effects of Hollywood's first (but not the only) version of Jules Verne's sci-fi classic were good and nominated for Oscars; they lost out to Ben-Hur, which swept all the awards.
There's a rolling-boulder scene that almost certainly inspired Spielberg and Lucas when they initially dreamed up Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Peter Ronson's lovable lunk Hans seems like a live-action template of Frozen's Kristoff.
It's one of the very best Hollywood adventure movies, with lots of monsters, underground oceans, sinister villains, and touches which would have delighted Jules Verne himself.