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Home > Sound and sight > Archives > 2008 > July > 10 > Entry

Movies in 3DDDDDDD …

By Carl Hoover | Thursday, July 10, 2008, 05:14 PM

Saw a screening of the 3-D Journey to the Center of the Earth today at Starplex Galaxy 16 and found it fun in the same way an amusement park ride is - you’re there for the thrill, not the acting or the story.

The dialogue, for instance, is lifted by the page from the Book of Cliches (e.g., hero, female interest and teenage boy tumble hundreds of feet down a lava tube. Boy asks, “Where are we?” Umm, several hundred feet under the Earth’s surface, maybe?).

Many of the scenes with the nifty effects are lifted, too. The runaway mine train - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The nail-biting walk across an enormous chasm - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (though Journey’s version adds a nifty touch in that the walk is on magnetic rocks suspended in the air, with a tendency to flip upside down). The rampaging T rex -Jurassic Park. The flock of bioluminescent birds and the flying fish with really nasty fangs were original, but it really didn’t matter how much Journey borrowed and didn’t - the effects were what the film was about.

I did find myself wishing for several remakes, though: the 3-D versions of the Indiana Jones films, Jurassic Park, even King Kong and The Lord of the Rings. If 3-D effects could make a derivative action film enjoyable, think what it could do in the hands of a storyteller like Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson or George Lucas …

You have to wear special disposable (and supposedly recyclable), polarized glasses for the 3-D to work. That adds an extra $2 to the ticket price, according to Starplex’s Web site, but you don’t notice them much once the film starts. If you wear glasses, however, you may feel a bit dorkish

with glasses over your glasses.

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