Product Description

A science professor's untraditional hypotheses have made him the laughing stock of the academic community. But on an expedition in Iceland, he and his nephew stumble upon a major discovery that launches them on a thrilling journey deep beneath the Earth's surface, where they travel through never-before-seen worlds and encounter a variety of unusual creatures.

Journey to the Center of the Earth's main visual attraction is its 3-D rendition, and the effect is generally seamless. Home theaters become a three-dimensional paradise of eye-popping visuals as material literally leaps through the screen. When viewing 3D, the colors have a reddish-purple tint about them and objects are often accompanied by some ghosting, but the sacrifice in some fields is worth the novelty of the 3-D experience. The visuals give a whole new meaning to "3-D pop," and if the future of home theater is indeed 3-D imagery, bring it on, assuming viewers are provided the option of a traditional 2-D experience as New Line offers here. The standard transfer, presented in 1080p and framed at 1.78:1, offers decent, but not exemplary, high definition material. As the film opens, colors are a bit pale and blacks lean towards the gray and overly bright end of the spectrum. The image is incredibly bland and looks unnatural in 2-D. Nevertheless, as the film moves along, fine detail improves; an old generator found in chapter seven looks appropriately old and worn, as it shows signs of rusting, chipping, denting, and heavy use. As the film progresses into the dark, cavernous "center of the Earth" locales, detail on the whole picks up, flesh tones look more natural, and the imagery appears somewhat sharper. It's still a rather phony looking transfer, flat and seemingly free of noise at normal viewing distances. It's an adequate but subpar transfer that pales next to the 3-D version, which is how the film should be viewed, anyway. Nevertheless, the film's primary draw, the 3-D presentation, is impressive, and the transfer receives 4/5 Blue "Bs" as a result.

Journey to the Center of the Earth includes only a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, an obvious and unfortunate blunder by New Line/Warner Brothers. As it is, the track is decent, with plenty of rear-channel activity and bass, but nothing stands out as remarkable or exciting, and the experience isn't up to par with the charm of the film, the excitement of the visuals, or the adventure theme of the picture. Nevertheless, dialogue reproduction is strong, and the film's score flows nicely from the front speakers. The rear channels don't see much action until 20 minutes into the film where a storm atop an Icelandic mountain engulfs the listening area, as thunder booms and crackles, as lightning bolts strike down from the heavens and onto the harsh terrain. Surrounds come to life with discrete sound and atmospherics rather often, and the track is fun to listen to, if not a bit underwhelming on the whole from a volume and clarity standpoint. One thing the soundtrack does well is its faithfulness to some of the visuals and certain audio cues that work in perfect harmony with the 3-D imagery. For example, the killer fish attack sequence in chapter 13 shows several of the attacking aquatic beasts jumping straight into the living room, and the soundtrack follows it perfectly from front to back. Far from the awesome sound effects and pitch-perfect soundtrack that is The Incredible Hulk, for example, Journey to the Center of the Earth manages to be just good enough to keep audiences in the film, but the soundtrack simply doesn't match the power and excitement of the film's visuals, and it's a shame that New Line/Warner Brothers dropped the ball on such an important and enjoyable title as this.

3D Blu-ray DVD Movies Disc - Journey to the Center of the Earth Features

Video
Video codec: MPEG-4 MVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio

Subtitles

Discs
50GB Blu-ray Disc
 

Package Content

3D Blu-ray DVD Movies Disc(50GB) - 3D Blu-ray DVD Movies Disc - Journey to the Center of the Earth x 1