Summaries

On a quest to find out what happened to his missing brother, a scientist, his nephew and their mountain guide discover a fantastic and dangerous lost world in the center of the earth.

Professor Trevor Anderson receives his teenager nephew Sean Anderson. He will spend ten days with his uncle while his mother, Elizabeth, prepares to move to Canada. She gives a box to Trevor that belonged to his missing brother, Max, and Trevor find a book with references to the last journey of his brother. He decides to follow the steps of Max with Sean and they travel to Iceland, where they meet the guide Hannah Ásgeirsson. While climbing a mountain, there is a thunderstorm and they protect themselves in a cave. However, lightening collapses the entrance and the trio is trapped in the cave. They seek an exit and fall in a hole, discovering a lost world in the center of the Earth.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Science professor Trevor Anderson wasn't prepared to mind his teen nephew Sean ten days, while the kid's mother prepares their move to Canada. She stumbled across a box belonging to the knave's father, Trevor's brother Max, who went missing years ago. It contains a journal documenting his last journey, which happens to go to the very volcanic region in Iceland which Trevor's research, set up with Max, flashes as most notable. he decides to travel there and Sean insists to come along. They need a local guide and hire Hannah Ásgeirsson, who proves quite practical, while the Andersons provide ingenuity and bravado. Seeking shelter for a storm in a collapsing cave, they descend trough a volcanic exit into a road to the center of the world, and find it has its distinct fauna and flora, partially dinosaur-ancient, which adds to the dangers posed by the elements as they must seek a way out, which seems hopeless.—KGF Vissers

A scientist, his nephew, and a travel guide travel to explore the discoveries and mysteries that are in the centre of the Earth. Through their adventure, they begin to learn all the secrets that are hidden in the world and gain more understanding of the sciences.—RECB3

Details

Keywords
  • dinosaur
  • bird
  • cave
  • following a bird
  • skeleton
Genres
  • Action
  • Adventure
  • Fantasy
  • Sci-Fi
  • Family
Release date Jul 10, 2008
Motion Picture Rating (MPA) PG
Countries of origin United States
Official sites Facebook
Language English Italian Icelandic
Filming locations Iceland
Production companies New Line Cinema Walden Media

Box office

Budget $60000000
Gross US & Canada $101704370
Opening weekend US & Canada $21018141
Gross worldwide $244232688

Tech specs

Runtime 1h 33m
Color Color
Sound mix DTS Dolby Digital SDDS
Aspect ratio 1.78 : 1

Synopsis

A man is running away from a Giganotosaurus (a large dinosaur with sharp pointy teeth, who is a carnivore). As the dinosaur pursues him, he comes to a fissure. He tries to jump over, but fails, and falls, calling out Trevor's name.

In 2007, Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) is a Bostonian Volcanologist whose 13-year-old nephew, Sean (Josh Hutcherson), is supposed to spend ten days with him. Trevor is a teacher in University.Trevor learns at work that his brother's lab (for the study of plate tectonics) is being shut down because of a lack of funding. Max was researching the existence of volcanic fissures which run all the way through the Earth's mantle. The university is clear that Max has been missing for 10 years and hence the lab cannot be kept funded indefinitely.

Trevor has forgotten that Sean is coming until he receives several messages from Sean's mother Elizabeth (Jane Wheeler). Sean is not interested in even talking to Trevor and prefers to engage himself with his handheld PSP. Elizabeth is moving to Canada and needed the 10 days to set everything up before Sean would join her.

When Sean's mother drops him off, she leaves Trevor with a box of items that belonged to Max (Jean-Michel Pare), Trevor's brother and Sean's father, who disappeared 10 years before. Sean suddenly takes interest in what Trevor has to say after he tells him about his father, whom he never really had a chance to know. Among the items in the box is the novel A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Inside the book, Trevor finds notes written by his late brother. Trevor goes to his laboratory to find out more about the notes. Trevor realizes that the notes from Max are readings from Volcanos and from his equipment he finds that the readings that day are the same as they were 10 years ago when Max went missing.

At Trevor's laboratory, the two learn there is a new dot on his radar device on Snaefell, an extinct volcano in Iceland. Trevor believes that Max went looking for the volcanic tubes and perhaps found one. Trevor realizes that he must go to Iceland to investigate for himself. Trevor goes to Iceland to investigate. He intends to send Sean back to his mother but relents at Sean's protest and brings Sean to Iceland with him.

They start by looking for another Volcanologist named Sigurbjorn Asgeirsson (Garth Gilker) (as his name was mentioned in Max's notes) and instead find his daughter Hannah Sigurbjornsdottir (Anita Briem), the scientist having died years earlier. It turns out that Sigurbjorn Asgeirsson and Max Anderson were Vernians, a small group who believe the works of Jules Verne to be fact. However, she offers to help them climb up to the instrument that has suddenly started sending data again. There were no roads to the volcano and Hannah agrees to guide them for 5000 kroner an hour.Hannah and Trevor know that Snaefells is the volcano where Lidenbrock (a character from the Jules Verne book) found a portal to the center of the Earth.

While hiking the mountain, a lightning storm forces the three into a cave that collapses, leaving them trapped. They find it is an abandoned mine and Trevor finds veins of Magnesium running all through the walls of the cave. Hannah recalls that the mine was shut down 60 years ago after a big disaster that killed 81 miners. Only 1 miner escaped.

They venture further into the mine, eventually reaching the bottom of a volcanic tube which is full of precious gems. As they are admiring the gems they realize the floor they're standing on is actually Muscovite, a very thin layer of rock formation. The Muscovite breaks, and the group falls through the volcanic tube towards the center of the earth, surviving only because the volcanic tube eventually turns into something like a "water slide" which drops them into a lake. There, they find that the center of the Earth is actually another world contained within the Earth.

The group continues seeking a way back to the surface. Along the way, they find evidence that someone was there 100 years previously. Trevor remarks that the instruments found are Lidenbrock's, hinting that his views of the events of the book being real are changing. They find some of Max's things as well, such as his water bottle and his journal. While Trevor and Sean are going through what they've found, Hannah wanders off and unfortunately discovers Max's body.

They bury him on the beach of the underground ocean and Trevor reads a letter to Sean found in Max's journal about how it was Sean's birthday that day and how Max thought he would never be there to give his son his first baseball glove. They then say their goodbyes and hug each other. Trevor also discovers that his brother died due to dehydration because of the Magma surrounding the center of the Earth.

Using Max's advice from his journal, Trevor figures that they must find a geyser that can send them to the surface, which is located on the other side of the underground ocean, or else the temperature will rise up to 200 °F, making it impossible to survive. They must reach the geyser in 48 hours or all of the water to create the geyser will have evaporated. They also figure that they must get out before the temperature rises past 135 degrees.

They build a raft and begin crossing the underground ocean, but soon encounter a pack of Xiphactinus, so they use makeshift baseball bats to bat them away, until the arrival of a shoal of Elasmosaurus. After the fish attack, the raft's sail becomes loose, and Sean tries to hold on, but is blown away and becomes separated from the two adults.

Sean's guide is now a little bird who has been present since the trio entered the center, and it takes him towards the river. He then goes walking but trips and finds out he is in a magnetic field. Next, he goes through a path of floating magnetic rocks; he almost falls down but is able to hang on.

Meanwhile, Trevor and Hannah decide to split up to find him. Sean wanders on to find a dry bone-filled land. He hears roars and hides behind a rock. Drool falls next to him, and Sean looks up, to encounter a Giganotosaurus which drools on top of him and his face and comes after him. Sean runs, but the dinosaur is faster. It finds him, and he yells and cries for help. Trevor - who has desperately been searching for him - finds him.

The beast pursues them until they discover that the ground beneath them is Muscovite, the same type as earlier. The dinosaur falls through the Muscovite, creating a massive hole, and dies in the process. They get to a river and find Hannah, using another Giganotosaurus skull as a boat. They sail until they end up at a volcano with magma rising. When they arrive at the geyser it is all dried up. All the water is on the other side of the walls.They feel cold water on the other side of a magnesium wall.

Trevor uses a flare to ignite the magnesium in the wall and causes a geyser to shoot them through Mount Vesuvius in Italy, where they destroy the vineyard of an Italian man; Sean gives him a diamond that he found earlier to say sorry. Trevor sees that he has many more in his backpack, and he uses them to fund his brother's laboratoryThroughout the adventure, Hannah and Trevor gradually become close and even share a kiss.

Sean visits Trevor and Hannah in their new home, which was purchased with some of the diamonds Sean took from the cave. Trevor hands Sean a copy of the book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius L. Donnelly, suggesting they could maybe hang out during Sean's Christmas break. It was also shown that the glowing bird was also smuggled out by Sean in attempt to keep it as a pet only for Trevor to turn it down as the bird flies off.

All Filters