Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

From an early age I've loved films based on Jules Verne's "Journey To The Centre of Earth", Edgar Rice Burroughs' "At The Earth's Core", Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" and countless other tales of hidden realms populated by strange civilisations, weird creatures or dinosaurs, no matter how loosely they followed the original, how many liberties they took with it or how much they "borrowed" from each other. I'm also a fan of cheesy 80's fantasy, so generally I can be forgiving towards wobbly special effects, but even I must draw the line somewhere! My main problem with this isn't the terrible acting or the dodgy special effects (anyone waiting for stop-motion dinosaurs, please move along. There's some men-in-suit monsters, I'll get to those in a sec) but with they fact that this "story" has no structure to it whatsoever. Characters that start of being the main protagonists end up being side-lined or even just forgotten (I would imagine they couldn't afford the actors after filming started and they just walked off set), plot lines are set up then are not resolved and it literally ends with "And then someone just does something and makes everything OK- THE END!". Halfway through the film the characters have dream sequences, one of which shows the protagonists shooting up through a tunnel in a large stone bowl, reminiscent of the ending of the Disney film of the same name, another shows one of the heroes rescuing the others and a character that is yet to be introduced played by Emo Philips (who's name receives top billing) from large, shambling monsters. Later in the film Emo Philips does indeed turn up, albeit in a different costume and wig to that he had in the dream and you go "Aha! The characters were somehow predicting their own future!" but that isn't the case! Philips character is just another "wacky" minion who doesn't effect the story whatsoever!If films were cars you'd have some that were finely crafted Rolls Royces, some that were sturdy, reliable functional trucks and others that may be cheap and badly made or old and rusted and falling apart. Journey To The Center of the Earth isn't even one of these, it's just some assorted junk that someone has assembled in the shape of a car. Seriously, this film should never had been released.

This movie should win or be in the category the worst film ever made. I cannot say anything good about it at all. The acting, writing, direction, scenery, and everything else is just so poor. However, I would actually recommend that you see this film just to believe that it was made. The first half of the film is about the journey to the center of the world. Then people go missing, some without any reason. Then the second half is about the lost city of Atlantis which I believe is the 2nd half of another film which they obviously thought would work together. It didn't. If you like B movies then it might be funny to you. But, to anyone else, it really sucks. Gave it 1 out of 10 because there is no option of 0 out of 10.

I'm the named director of the film. Only the approximately first 8 minutes of the film were written or directed by me. The remainder of the film is actually the sequel to "Alien In LA" which was tacked on and renamed "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in order to fulfill contractual commitments by the production company to foreign distributors. The remainder of the footage I shot (my film) has never been seen by the public (and few others) due to the lack of funds at the time to shoot and insert the many special effects shots required. The storyline of my version/script is entirely different from that in the above-titled film (the released version).

Rusty Lemorande's ' Journey To The Center Of The Earth ' should not be regarded as a sequel to Albert Pyun's ' Alien From L.A. '. Although released in the same year as that movie ( 1988 ) and utilizing some of the same sets and characters, Lemorande's ' Journey... ' actually pre-dates it, production having begun around 1986. Unfortunately, financial problems apparently halted filming and Pyun was later brought in to make the movie his own, the latter half of the story altered to tie-in with the release of ' Alien.. '.Loosely based on Jules Verne's classic novel and aimed squarely at a teen audience, ' Journey... ' is a fun science-fiction fantasy adventure that has a likeable young british nanny named Crystina ( Nicola Cowper ) plummet to the center of the earth whilst exploring the volcanic landscape of Hawaii with two young american boys, Richard ( Paul Carafotes ) and Bryan ( Ilan Mitchell-Smith of ' Weird Science ' ).The first half of the movie belongs to Lemorande and concerns Crystina's arrival in Hawaii and her eventual descent into the center of the earth. The latter half belongs to Pyun and has Crystina wander into ' Alien From L.A.'s ' punk underground world of Atlantis. The first half is the most interesting and showcases some truly amazing special effects. The latter half is less so and is somewhat slapdash in comparison.I would hope that one day ' Journey... ' will get a release in it's original cut. For snippets of Lemorande's original vision, very different from the final cut and edited into the movie as dream sequences, has Crystina and Richard captured by underground trolls and rescued by comic book fan Bryan! Who knows, maybe an alternate version of the movie will eventually see the light of day on a special edition DVD? It would certainly make interesting viewing.