Blu-ray Movie Reviews

No one believes that Trevor Anderson is on to something. The science professor's unconventional hypotheses have put him on the fringe of the academic community. But during an expedition in Iceland, Trevor and his teenage nephew, Sean, accompanied by their beautiful local guide, Hannah, make a breakthrough discovery that launches them on a thrilling adventure into the unknown. As their journey takes them deep beneath the Earth's surface, they travel through never-before-seen worlds that bring them face-to-face with surreal and unimaginable creatures, stretching the bounds of the visionary scientist's own imagination.

This film was shot specifically for 3-D viewing and the Blu-ray includes both the 3-D version and a standard 2-D version as well. Four sets of 3-D glasses are included but they are the cheap style that use magenta and green filters unlike the polarized lenses you use in digital theaters today. This makes the experience a bit of a wash. Sure you still get the limited 3-d effect a smaller screen can provide, but the overall cast of the two colors makes watching difficult and eye strain a real issue. Digital 3-D in theaters is a pretty cool idea and with polarized lenses it works pretty well but they need to have the same systems in place for home viewing or the experience isn’t nearly the same.

As far as the movie goes this one plays out like an adventure ride more than a feature film. The production value looks more like a low budget TV show than a feature film and the plot moves along just enough to get you to the next 3-D gag. The premise does have some interesting merit but the execution is geared completely to the offbeat family entertainment ride.

We watched most of the thrill sequences in 3-D to get the effect but couldn’t get through the entire film with the glasses on do to fatigue and the onset of headaches. The 3-D effect worked pretty good for the most part but even on my large screen the effect wasn’t nearly as convincing as it is at the local Cineplex. The 2-D version wasn’t all that great in the picture department. The image had a washed out quality most of the time with no real fine object detail. Depth and dimension weren’t bad and some of the darker sequences had a nice level of contrast, but the image had a veiled look to it that didn’t translate well to HD. Most sequences had the appearance of actors in front of a green screen and the backdrops weren’t impressive from a special effects point of view.

The soundtrack is delivered in legacy Dolby Digital 5.1 and overall it wasn’t a bad mix. Dynamic range is impressive at times and the low bass extension lends a lot to the overall experience. Surrounds are used aggressively to help with the feel of the “thrill ride” and the sound stage is pretty active as a whole. Dialogue showed some minor strain from time to time which is always a distraction.

Aside from having both versions of the film on one disc, New Line has included a couple of extras including a look at being on the set of the film with actor Josh Hutcherson, some interesting perspectives on the “hollow earth theories” and a brief production feature on the dino-drool used in one of the key action sequences. There is also a digital copy of the film for portable devices on a separate disc.

While this film was supposedly pretty fun in digital 3-D during its box office run, it didn’t translate well to the smaller screen. The glasses made long term viewing almost impossible and the rather ho-hum video presentation of the 2-D version coupled with the obvious gearing toward the thrill ride experience didn’t make things any better. A rental at best.