Review for Journey To The Centre Of The Earth

Call the cops!! Someone at Odeon (one of my favourite distributors)  is passing off movies as ‘Best of British’ that are about as British as Abba on a holiday in Italy singing to an audience of Spanish children. In other words, ‘Best of British’ it ain’t. No way Jose! In fact, the 1977 movie ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ can only be found on IMDB under its original and less misleading title: ‘Viaje al centro de la Tierra’. Very British I’m sure. It’s essentially a Spanish production, with Spanish cast and crew, filmed in Spain, and financed by a Spanish studio. With British credentials like that, I’m surprised that Odeon didn’t give the DVD a pearly-king wrap. (Maybe in a parallel universe someone is packaging up ‘Passport to Pimlico’ as a Best of Spanish DVD?).


The even worse news is that even if the ‘it’s just not British’ accusation failed at the trade description tribunal, then surely the ‘Best’ descriptor could pass? The film is not an example of the ‘best’ of anything – unless it’s a competition for the least convincing, most lack-lustre, most badly dubbed adventure movie of all time. In which case I suppose even I would concede.


So let’s start by agreeing one thing at least. Kenneth More, at the twilight end of his career, is indeed British. He is a good actor too. (Who could fail to enjoy his performance in ‘Reach for the Sky’ for example? A very British film it must be said). But even More looks like he’s just like to get it over with most the time.
It’s a real shame because when this review disc landed I was really keen to see it. Having recently enjoyed the re-released Amicus pictures (‘The Land that Time Forgot’ and ‘At the Earth’s Core’, a similar conceit to this), I was hoping for more of the same. But sadly it was not to be. Though I fidgeted nervously for what seemed like forever before one of the players in the film declared ‘Let the Adventure Begin’ (32 minutes into this dreary picture) , even that revitalised hope was dashed as the film limply and unconvincingly limped ever onward.
I’d go along with the theory that as an adult I probably missed the point, if it wasn’t for having had such a blast watching ‘At the Earth’s Core’ a couple of weeks ago. But the turgid dialogue, the wooden delivery (and bad dubbing), the ponderous pace and the rubbery monsters (well, OK – I liked the rubbery monsters; they were just a bit too few and far between) added up to a movie that really disappointed. And with so many movies out there and so little time – that hurt!


Kenneth More plays the part of one Professor Otto Lindenbrock, a geologist who wants to find out what lies at the centre of the earth, and having come across a guide sets out immediately on an expedition. (A lucky stop –off at a book store to be thanked for that). Together with his niece Glauben (Lvonne Sentis), a soldier, Axel (Pep Munné) and a sheep-less shepherd Hans (Frank Braña), Otto and his team set off with barely a Tupperware lunchbox between them into the entrance of a volcanoe and beyond. You’d hope that this would herald a few adventures, and indeed it does with one or two in the genuinely entertaining / scary category but despite the inevitable cave-ins, giant mushrooms with their posoinous powder and a journey on a make-shift raft through a monster strewn ocean, there are nowhere near as many as in the Amicus Burroughs pictures.


The acting is all so low-key (no disaster seems to phase anyone particularly) that it’s difficult to get involved and I ended up not particularly caring one way or another what became of the team. And the man-eating tortoises (just run you fools – they’re tortoises!) ,the man in the monkey suit and the time traveller lurking in the cave did nothing to save it for me.


The transfer is good enough, though it’s tough to see if the audio track was slipping or it was just badly dubbed, and the extras comprised little more than trailers to other great British movies.


Unless you saw this as a kid and remember it through positively rose-tinted spectacles, it really is one to avoid.