Spunky British nanny Crystina (cute Nicola Cowper, who sports a vintage 80's Cyndi Lauper-like short spiky hairdo) and squabbling brothers Bryan (obnoxious Ilan Mitchell-Smith of "Weird Science") and Richard (jerky Paul Carafotes) discover the fantastic and dangerous subterranean city of Atlantis while exploring a cave. Said city is ruled by a strict totalitarian government that doesn't take kindly to any strangers from the above ground world. Man, is this flick a real incredibly baffling and barely coherent mishmosh of two separate movies: Director Rusty Lemorande had his finished feature taken away from him by callous studio executives and completed by director Albert Pyun, who turned the movie into a bizarre and baffling sort of sequel to his delightfully inane "Alien from L.A.". The resultant patchwork abomination comes complete with draggy pacing, severe lapses in basic logic (Richard gets a face full of steam, but doesn't suffer any burns whatsoever!),annoying characters, silly dream scenes, shoddy (not so) special effects, a laboriously drawn-out opening third, garish cinematography (the film often resembles a very tacky 80's music video stretched out to feature length),funky, syncopated music, irritating use of wipes, a ridiculous music montage sequence, and a totally nonsensical ending. Janet Du Plessis has a nifty dual role as helpful rat lady Shank and evil eye-patched General Rykov, Kathy Ireland makes a cameo appearance as Wanda Saknussemm, and eccentric stand-up comedian Emo Philips can be briefly glimpsed in one of the dream scenes. Despite its frequently dumbfounding cheesiness and pervasive feeling of heavy lethargy, this oddity still manages to be strangely watchable and entertaining. By no means a good film, but a deliciously dreadful piece of dreck that hardcore bad cinema aficionados should get a kick out of seeing.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is an incredibly poor B-movie science fiction film shot in South Africa. For the first part it plays out as a genuine attempt at a novel adaptation, but then an entirely different film is tacked on and directed by B-movie specialist Albert Pyun. This film is a sequel to ALIEN FROM L.A. and feels like NIGHT OF THE COMET in its depiction of fashion victims battling an alien race living below the Earth. Truth be told, this is cheesy and confusing, with only the fashions and hairstyles standing out; the rest is unfunny, badly acted, and completely generic, the kind of movie that has absolutely no idea what it wants to be.

I guess the answer to my own question is that it is so bad it's good. Fans of the book will probably well and truly dislike this film, but while some of it was like viewing a train wreck, I did find myself moderately enjoying it.

The cast is pretty electric and do their best. They don't have much to work with and the results overall are a mixed bag, plus I admit there were some questionable casting choices initially, but I could actually sort of see some effort. The pacing is pretty good, the direction was at least okay(in some ways) and the film is a good enough length, maybe not long enough to cover the whole story but it wasn't too short or too long in my opinion.

However, I have to admit there are a LOT of problems with this film. The story is incoherent and sometimes hard to follow, while the script has a lot of ups and downs. Complete with some garish cinematography, some amateurish sets and some half-baked special effects. And in case you're wondering, it does bare little resemblance to the book- not that it is a flaw or anything, but in case you love the book and are thinking of seeing this film, I am just warning you in advance it has a number of changes.

Overall, has its moments, but it does have this so bad its good value, so it's watchable but don't expect a masterpiece. 5/10 Bethany Cox