Journey to the Center of the Earth

Plot

Plot
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 learns at work that his brother's lab is being shut down because of a lack of funding. Trevor has forgotten that Sean is coming until he receives several messages from Sean's mother. When Sean's mother drops him off, she leaves Trevor with a box of items that belonged to Max, Trevor's brother and Sean's father, who disappeared 10 years before, in July 1997. 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. In the box, Trevor discovers the novel 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. There he realizes that he must go to Iceland to investigate for himself.

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. When they get to that scientist's institution, they meet his daughter Hannah (Anita Briem), who informs them he is dead. She also tells them that both her father and Max believed that Jules Verne's books were factual accounts. However she offers to help them climb up to the instrument that has suddenly started sending data again. While hiking the mountain a lightning storm forces the three into a cave. The cave entrance collapses, trapping them, so they have no alternative but to go deeper in the cave, which turns out to be an abandoned mine.

Trevor, Sean, and Hannah investigate farther into the mine until they fall into a deep hole, taking them to the "Center of the Earth". They all continue until they discover a cave-dwelling that Max lived in. Trevor and Sean find Max's old journal. Hannah and Trevor discover Max's dead body and bury him. Trevor reads a message from Max's journal that was written on Sean's 3rd birthday (8-14-97). Trevor continues to read Max's journal until he realizes from his notes that they must quickly leave, as the temperature is steadily rising.

Trevor figures that they must find a geyser that can send them to the surface. They must do this in 48 hours or all of the water to create the geyser will be gone. They also figure that they must get out before the temperature rises past 135 degrees. They begin by crossing the underground ocean, and then the two adults become separated from Sean. 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. However, he encounters a Giganotosaurus, and Trevor - who desperately is searching for him - saves him. When they arrive at the geyser it is all dried up. All of the water is on the other side of a wall.

Trevor uses a flare to ignite the magnesium in the wall and causes a geyser to shoot them through Mount Vesuvius in Italy. When they destroy the home of an Italian man, Sean gives him a diamond that he had found earlier. Trevor sees that he has many more in his backpack, and he uses them to fund his brother's laboratory. Throughout the adventure, Hannah and Trevor gradually become so attached to each other that they kiss. On the final day of Sean's visit with Trevor (and now Hannah), he is leaving their new home, which was purchased with some of the diamonds Sean took from the cave, and Trevor hands Sean a book titled "Atlantis", suggesting they could maybe hang out at Sean's during Christmas break.

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In a lost editorial of the original film, the entire second half is replaced with reference to the 2021 collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in the wake of a military offensive by the Taliban. This has lead many fans of the film to theorize that the films' producers, Walden Media, are capable of time travel as an explanation for their capturing of the second rise of the Taliban so accurately despite filming taking place nearly 13 years before the fact. As the crew descends into the Center of the Earth, they are met by multiple hostile Taliban fighters, who engage Brendan Fraser with AK rifles as Sean Anderson ducks for cover. Brendan Fraser has been living in the matrix ever since Afton Smith left him, and he is thus able to dodge the Taliban fighters' shots like he is playing dodgeball. After 4 seconds of prolonged action, the fighters' rifles run empty and they begin to draw various melee weapons with which to violently engage the divorced actor. Little did they realise, Brendan Fraser has mastered the precum trickshot, and quickly removes his pants and The Simpsons boxers to prepare to fire. One wise Taliban fighter drops his weapon and surrender, but the divorced Brendan Fraser knows no mercy. One-by-one, Fraser blasts the fighters with horrifying precision, as Sean Anderson looks on with awe. The Talib fall defeated, their bones shattered by the sheer force of Brendan's precum blasts. The alimony-riddled actor looks on to the rest of Kabul stoically, ready to bring peace to Afghanistan.