Journey to the Center of the Earth

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 has forgotten that Sean is coming until he returns home and finally receives several messages from Sean's mother about the visit.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. 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. Inside the box Trevor discovers Max's old baseball glove, a yo-yo, and the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne and inside the book Trevor finds notes written by his late brother. Trevor goes to his laboratory and finds out the is a new dot on his radar device on Sneffels, which is a extinct volacano in Iceland. To find out more about the notes, Trevor realizes that he must go to Iceland to investigate for himself.He intends to have Sean flown back to Canada but relents at Sean's protest and brings him along for the adventure.They start by looking for another volcanologist named Sigurbjörn Ásgeirsson and instead find his daughter Hannah (portrayed by Anita Briem), the scientist having died years earlier. It turns out that he and Trevor's brother Max were Vernians, a small group who believe the works of Jules Verne to be fact. Hannah offers to help them climb up to the Stag Mountain which has suddenly started sending data again.While hiking the mountain, a lightning storm forces the three into a cave that collapses, leaving them trapped. The group then explores the cave looking for an exit, and they find it is an abandoned mine which was closed after an accident that killed 81 people. They venture deep into the mine until they reach the end of the tunnels and enter to the bottom of a volcanic tube which is full of precious gems. As they are admiring the gems they realize the floor they're standing on is actually muscovite, a very thin layer of rock formation. Sean, as he holds all the precious gems he collected, is told to retrace his steps back to the entrance of the muscovite platform. While the group is slowly walking back to the entrance, one of the gems Sean was holding falls out of his backpack and pierces the muscovite, causing the platform to fall. The group falls (for about 2 minutes) through the volcanic tube towards the center of the earth, surviving only because the volcanic tube eventually turns into something like a "water slide" which drops them into a lake. It is there that they find that the center of the Earth is actually another world contained within the Earth, "a world within our world", and they set out to explore the place.Along the way they find evidence that someone was there 100 years previous. Trevor remarks that the instruments found are Lindenbrook's (a character from the book), hinting that his views of the events of the book being real are changing. They find some of Max's (Trevor's brother and Sean's father) things as well, such as his water bottle and his journal. While Trevor and Sean are going through what they've found, Hannah wanders off and unfortunately discovers Max's body. They bury him on the beach of the underground ocean and Trevor reads a letter to Sean found in Max's journal about how it was Sean's birthday that day and how Max thought he would never be there to give his son his first baseball glove. They then say their goodbyes and hug each other. Trevor then realizes that his brother died due to dehydration.Trevor figures that they must find a geyser that can send them to the surface, which is located on the other side of the underground ocean, or else the temperature will raise up to 200 degrees, making it impossible to survive. They must reach the geyser in 48 hours or all of the water to create the geyser will have evaporated. They also figure that they must get out before the temperature rises past 135 degrees, which is the limit that the human body can withstand. They build a raft out of reeds and begin crossing the underground ocean, but soon encounter a large attack of fish, so they use makeshift baseball bats to bat them away (with one nearly biting Hannah on her behind). After the fish attack, the raft's sail becomes loose, and Sean tries to hold on, but is blown away and becomes separated from the two adults. 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. After he goes through a path of floating magnetic rocks, he encounters a Giganotosaurus and Trevor - who has desperately been searching for him - finds him. The beast pursues them until they discovers that the ground beneath them is muscovite, the same type as earlier. The monster falls through the muscovite, creates a massive hole and dies in the process. When they arrive at the geyser, they find out that they missed it, but they hear water 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 vineyard of an Italian man, Sean gives him a diamond which he 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 close and even share a kiss. The film ends on the final day of Sean's visit with Trevor (and now Hannah). As he is leaving their new home, which was purchased with some of the diamonds Sean took from the cave. Trevor hands Sean a copy of the book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius L. Donnelly, suggesting they could maybe hang out during Sean's Christmas break, alluding to a possible sequel.