t's 1875, and geologist, paleontologist and part-time bare-knuckle
brawler Theodore Lytton (Williams) is approached by the wealthy Alice
Hastings (Bergen), who has an incredible proposition: She would like to
finance an expedition beneath the surface of the Earth to find her husband, adventurer Casper
Hastings, who disappeared seven years ago searching for gold in a cavern in
New Zealand.
With the help of his brilliant law student nephew, Jonas (London),
Lytton heads off to New Zealand. There, he encounters the mysterious McNiff
(Hugh Keays-Byrne), a shady character with a nose tattoo who offers to help
negotiate the fluid political situation. It seems the local Maoris are rebelling
against the colonial military. At the same time, Alice shows up
unexpectedly. She wants to be part of the expedition, and she won't take no for
an answer.
Once inland, the Maoris show up and threaten to eat Alice. But it also
becomes clear that McNiff's true mission is to run guns to the natives.
Before the party leaves, they learn that Casper headed into the throat of
Mt. Ruapehu.
Underground, the party encounters scalding water, exploding gas and
prehistoric scorpions--and the skeletons of those who have gone before. Nearly
out of water and food, they discover the shores of an immense underground
sea--and a sign that Casper has been there before them.
Narrowly evading killer pterodactyls, they set off on a handmade raft,
reaching the far shores and a blue forest. But the forest holds hidden
dangers, including a species of intelligent dinosaur
people--"Sauroids"--who kidnap Alice. At the same time, Jonas spots a
beautiful native girl. Following her, the party discovers an underground
race of cliff-dwelling humans. More shocking: Casper (Brown) is still
alive, and has made himself their chieftain.
More narrow escapes and rescues ensue as Lytton and the others learn
what Casper has been doing all these years at the center of the Earth--and
what perils await them.
A long strange trip
Journey to the Center of the Earth, a very loose update of Jules
Verne's classic story, comes from co-executive producer and miniseries
mogul Robert Halmi Jr. and is the USA Network's attempt to duplicate the
ratings success of fantasy-based miniseries like NBC's Gulliver's
Travels and Merlin.
It contains some of the campy pleasures of previous incarnations of this
famous tale (notably the 1959 film that featured James Mason and Pat
Boone): the motley crew of explorers, primeval vistas, dinosaurs, grunting
savages and lissome native girls.
But at four hours, Journey feels almost as long as the intrepid
adventurers' expedition itself. The miniseries bogs down in soapy melodrama
as often as it attempts to deliver cliff-hanging thrills. (Journey's
director, George Miller, is the guy who made Zeus and Roxanne, not the man of the
same name who made The Road Warrior.)
Toward the end, the journey improbably begins to take on the dimensions
of The Wizard of Oz, with Jonas seeking courage, Theodore seeking
his heart and Casper as the shaman who isn't what he seems. Kind of like Oz with
giant lizards.
The computer-generated special effects, sets and production design are
inconsistent and sometimes disappointingly flimsy and phony-looking. But
there's some nice location footage of Australia and New Zealand, where the
miniseries was filmed.
The script, such as it is, contains a few amusing lines as it
concentrates heavily on exploring the budding romance between Theodore and
Alice, and Jonas and the scantily clad Ralna (Petra Yared). The actors do
what they can, but make little impression amid the special effects. Brown
for one seems to be very tired, and Williams is a long way from his
performance in Prince of the City.
r. Richard Long (David Paymer) has been working on Horn Island to
create a powerful defoliant for a secret military project called Elvis.
Just as the project is about to be shut down by Major Andrew Brynner (Peter
Firth), the military commander of the operation, Dr. Long has an epiphany
about how to make the defoliant work and talks the reluctant Brynner into
one more test.
The defoliant has a new molecular configuration that ignites when its
temperature reaches 50 degrees. However, something goes terribly wrong when
Long miscalculates the power of the explosion, and 18 of Brynner's men are
killed. Brynner is turned into a scapegoat by the military and sentenced to 10
years in prison.
Ten years later, Long lives in a small town and works at a nearby
government installation. The people in the tiny town know he's a man with
secrets, and it doesn't bother them much. After all, everyone has secrets.
Long enjoys fly fishing and often gets philosophical with his fishing
buddy, Tim Mason (Ulrich), who is the night cook at the local diner.
Meanwhile, prison has changed Brynner, who's had an epiphany of his own.
He can acquire Elvis and sell it to the highest bidder. When he gets out,
he and his group of mercenaries find Long. Brynner shoots Long, but the
scientist manages to escape with Elvis. Long makes it to the diner and
passes the dangerous chemical off to Tim before he dies, begging Tim with
his last breath to get Elvis to Fort Magruder before it can detonate.
Tim takes Elvis and hijacks an ice cream truck along with its shady driver
man, Arlo (Gooding). Hot on their heels are Brynner and his
commandos. Now the only thing left between Brynner and $100 million
are a couple of amateur heroes and a speeding ice cream truck. And Brynner
isn't about to be stopped.
Light and frothy death and destruction
Chill Factor plays like a silly version of Speed on helium, but it's
not without some entertainment value. Directed by Hugh Johnson, Chill
Factor doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's not really the point.
The movie is just an excuse to put Ulrich and Gooding in an action/buddy
film. On that level, it works pretty well, and the two leads seem to be
having a good time.
While the filmmakers keep the action moving along with explosions and
speeding row boats, it's too bad they couldn't come up with a plot that made more
sense. The plot device is a good one--a chemical will blow up and wipe
out every living thing for several hundred miles if its temperature reaches
50 degrees. But there's no logic to back up that plot device. For example,
why would a crack commando drop down on a rope in front of the speeding ice
cream truck to take out the driver (insuring the truck will hit him
regardless of whether or not he gets the driver or, maybe, that the truck
might crash down the mountain and ignite the nasty chemical killing
everyone...including the bad guys)? There is simply no meat to this story.
In what passes for character development, each of the heroes
gets a moment to confess his sins before the script heads right back to
the main action. Since the story doesn't give them any room to develop their
characters, the leads fall into roles they've played before.
While this actually works in favor of the movie, it's a shame because it would have been nice
to see these good actors stretch a bit. Supporting them quite well are the
excellent character actors Firth and Paymer.
