Hokum at its visual finest

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Written by Jules Verne (novel), Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett, Michael Weiss. Directed by Eric Brevig. Stars Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem, Seth Meyers. 92 min. PG: for intense adventure action and some scary moments. Grade: C

It's like a law or something -- in every 3-D movie, somebody gets their hands on a yo-yo and starts whipping it at the audience.

"Journey to the Center of the Earth" gets the yo-yo action in early. That paves the way for an space, from toothy fish to man-eating plants and, of course, a T-rex.

This flick isn't very original, but it's a reasonably well-executed bit of entertainment aimed squarely at the 12-and-under set. Its logic doesn't really stand up to the light of day, or even a sixth-grade education, but it isn't meant to.

"Journey" belongs somewhere in the intellectual nether region between movies, video games and theme park rides. Don't be surprised if you see the latter two incarnations popping up soon.

As you might have guessed from the title, it's based on the novel by 19th-century science fiction pioneer Jules Verne about subterranean adventures. Brendan Fraser plays Trevor Anderson, a scientist following in the footsteps of his long-dead brother Max, a "Vernian" who believed that Verne's fantastic worlds weren't just fantasy.

Stuck with his snotty 13-year-old nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) along for the ride, Trevor finds new evidence that his sibling's much-maligned theories about the existence of tunnels leading to the Earth's core aren't just hokum. He hotttails it to Iceland, where they hook up with Hannah (Anita Briem), a mountain guide and daughter of another Vernian.

Before you can say "public domain," they've made like Gandalf versus the Balrog and fallen down a dark hole -- and into Verne's world.

The movie is a fount of derivativeness, shameless stealing bits from other movies, like the mine-car ride in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" or the snapping dinosaur from ... oh, about 8,000 films.

And yet I couldn't bring myself to dislike it.

Fraser (who's also a producer) exudes the family-friendly, just-for-kicks tone that "Journey" wants to stake. Parents may become bored about the fifth time some computer-generated thingy comes flying at them for no good reason -- that would be about 15 minutes into the run time -- but smaller children will doubtless shriek with glee straight to brisk ending.

"Journey to the Center of the Earth" may not have very high ambitions, but it rises to them expertly.