Brendan Fraser, left, Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem star in the family adventure Journey

Anita Briem and Brendan Fraser navigate troubled waters in Journey

“Journey to the Center of the Earth” would be a forgettable summer kiddie action movie except for the novel visual effects that make it a sight to see.

“Journey” is the first fiction feature shot with new-generation digital 3-D cameras. There would be no reason to see the film if it weren’t stereoscopic; but in 3-D capable theaters, it’s a through-the-looking-glass experience.

A modern reworking of the classic Jules Verne adventure, the film stars Brendan Fraser as Trevor, a genial geology professor whose volcano lab is about to be shut down by the penny-pinching dean. That’s a personal outrage to Trevor, who is carrying on research started by his brother Max, who disappeared 10 years earlier hunting “volcanic tubes” that he believed would lead directly to the planet’s core. During a visit from Max’s bored, bratty adolescent son Sean (Josh Hutcherson), Trevor finds data in Verne’s novel of subterranean exploration that parallel his findings. With Josh in tow, he embarks for Iceland to explore Max’s expedition site.

There are no significant female characters in Verne’s book, but that was 19th-century France, and this is Hollywood 2008. So we have the brave, adventurous and capable mountain guide Hannah (Icelandic actress Anita Briem) along for the ride. After a cave-in traps them in a mine, the trio find themselves in a world of jewel-encrusted caverns, dinosaurs, carnivorous plants and saber-toothed flying fish.

The film has about as much plot as a log flume ride. The story is in the tour of the underground wonderland, with Trevor and Sean playing baseball with the leaping prehistoric piranhas, a T-rex chase and a runaway minecart sequence. What little character development arises between potholes and pitfalls comes from a silly cross-generational rivalry by Trevor and Sean for Hannah’s affections.

The jokes don’t feel so much like they were written for 12-year-olds as by 12-year-olds. While the flesh-chomping fish close in, Josh gets a cell-phone call from his mom, the signal somehow penetrating 4,000 miles of rock. ‘We have a bad connection,’ he cracks, hanging up to continue the battle.

Fraser does most of the dramatic work in what is essentially a three-character film. He’s charming and intrepid, a more subdued version of the roustabout adventurer he plays in the “Mummy” movies. Hutcherson is a standard-issue TV tween, delivering a performance that is camera-savvy rather than persuasive. Briem, as frosty and eye-catching as her homeland, is little more than action-girl window dressing.

But the entertainment value of the proceedings never reaches zero, thanks to the fluidly incorporated 3-D visuals. Sometimes they’re lovely (glowing neon blur birds that fly off the screen and into the auditorium), sometimes they’re just dumb fun (Fraser brushing his teeth and spitting the toothpaste at the sink drain, seen from below), but they’re always worth a jump, a gasp or a laugh.

“Journey to the Center of the Earth” is clean, lightweight escapism with a top-notch gimmick.