This movie is one of the best examples I can think of for how one can stun the audience just by making the right use of the essence of cinema: pictures. They vary between being threatening, funny, amazing, beautiful and bizarre but all are highly imaginative. In fact, this movie is one of the most imaginative ever made, imagination being a quality that has disappeared almost completely from Hollywood over the last 40 years. It drags you into the world of its superb settings just the way for example "King Kong" did in 1933. This is just the kind of movie cinema was meant for, up from the days of its beginning (see for example "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" by Georges Méliès, 1902). "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" is pure cinema at its best.