The Bar

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson & Anita Briem

Director: Eric Brevig

Writer(s): Michael Weiss & Michael D. Weiss

Studio: New Line Cinema

Rating: PG

Official Bar Score: 

Synopsis of the fim from imdb :Professor Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) teaches earth sciences at the university and heads the Center of Volcanic Activity. Max Anderson, Trevor’s brother, built the monitoring system and placed the units around the world 10 years earlier. For some unknown reason, Max did not return, leaving behind a wife and son, Sean (Josh Hutcherson). Sean’s mother leaves the teenager at Trevor’s house to get some quality time with his uncle. They look at Max’s copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne and find a secret code. Back at the monitoring center Trevor compares the volcanic activity numbers and finds that they are exactly the same as the ones in the book. Trevor and Sean fly to Iceland to check one of the units and to see if they can find some information about where Max went. Trevor hires a beautiful mountain guide, Hannah (Anita Briem), to take them up the volcano. During an electrical storm on the volcano, they get trapped in an abandoned mine. They search for a way out of the mine and discover a wall filled with large diamonds. Unfortunately, the floor they are standing on can’t hold their weight, and they fall down a volcano tube for miles and miles until they reach the center of the earth. Once there, they encounter prehistoric glow birds, flying piranha, man-eating plants, and T-Rex dinosaurs that have been extinct for millions of years. They find that they are seeing the same things that were printed in the Jules Verne book. This gave them hope that someone was able to escape from the center of the earth and return to the surface.

This movie reminds me of those old 80’s made for tv creature features, it was more done to have a 3d film than to really tell a story here, it’s not a very long movie, and most of the plot is basic- Brendan Fraser reminds me of John Ritter, if John Ritter, had the potential to kick your ass. Always one for physical comedy, he isn’t as funny as he is in other movies, but he still manages to keep you in your seat (that is if you ARE in fact a Brendan Fraser fan). Odd moment in the film, was the 14 year old kid competing with Brendan’s character over Hanna the guide.

The creatures weren’t much to look at, and besides the T-rex you rarely got a clear shot of any of them, and much of the underground world in my opinion was barely fleshed out, besides the 5 second shot of giant mushrooms, and scene with the human fly traps, there wasn’t this huge element of danger from what i saw– even tho that was suppose to be a HUGE chunk of the film– so besides the final scene in the worm hole, the only place that had me thinking.. OH SHIT…. was the floating magnetic rocks, which i thought was one of the better visuals of the scene- and for god’s sake, what’s the deal with ppl jumping in and out of 100mph runaway railcars..they jump in and out of them without as much as one bruise, a kneecap injury or an amputation.. I MEAN C’MON.. i get suspending belief but i’ll take the T-REX over hollywood’s fascination with rail car hopping (see indiana jones, and a popular old school video game Donkey Kong Country for snes)

All in all the 3d was okay at best, i think live action has ways to go before they can reach the level animation has already reached. and as far as scoring the movie, i was split between 2 1/2, and 3, so i’ll say 3, just cause i know The Mummy 3 is coming out and im sure Brendan wont disappoint in that film.

Trivia and goofs:

Indie film maker Paul Chart (’American Perfekt’) was originally signed to write and direct the picture and penned the original script. Chart left the project, however, after a decision was made to shoot the film in 3-D, uncomfortable with the possibility it would become more ‘theme park ride’ than the epic action-adventure film he envisioned. The Jules Verne novel was apparently one of his favorite pieces of literature. Chart was ultimately replaced with effects specialist Eric Brevig and the script was heavily retooled to emphasize the new 3-D format.

# Continuity: Over the course of the movie, the main characters leave their backpacks behind only to have them suddenly reappear in the next scene. For example, when they get to the bottom of the tunnel after the mine, they drop their bags and walk through an opening without them. Several minutes later they are seen walking with them.

# Continuity: In the scene where Sean is laying on the “beach” after being carried across the ocean by the kite, when he is laying down, he is shown to have gloves on. In the next shot, as he is standing up, the gloves are gone. In the next shot, he is taking the gloves off and in the next shot, they have disappeared again as he begins to follow the bird.

# Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When the characters are jammed up next to a wall of water with magma rising, they try to light some magnesium in order to blow the wall away and superheat the water with the rising magma. At the same time, in each level down, the magnesium was “too wet” to light, causing Trevor to go lower and lower. First, why would the walls still be wet with a very hot heat source underneath it? Second, why not just wait for the magma to reach the lowest magnesium point, which would accomplish the same purpose?

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