Brendan Fraser is on the run as Trevor in Journey to the Center of the Earth. In the 3-D version this T-Rex comes charging right at you.

New Line Cinema / Sebastian Raymond

Director Eric Brevig’s updated version of the Jules Verne classic Journey to the Center of the Earth is an old-fashioned, rip-roaring, seat-of-the-pants action film that harkens back to the days of the Saturday matinee movies of the 1950s.

Indeed, the last big-screen version of Verne’s tale about explorers who get trapped underground in a mine cave-in in Iceland and try to find their way out was released in 1959 with the unlikely starring combination of James Mason and Pat Boone in a film set at the end of the 18th century.

This new Journey to the Center of the Earth has been updated to the 21st century and some theaters are showing it in a very good digital 3-D version (put on your glasses, though, just like in the 1950s). But the story still pretty much follows the contours of Verne’s original as the trio trapped underground encounters carnivorous plants, dinosaurs, huge gems, gigantic toadstools, an underground sea, man-eating fish, sea monsters, broiling temperatures and iridescent birds.

See it in 3-D if you can to get the full tummy-turning effects. (It’s showing in 3-D at Cinemaworld, Providence Place, the Showcase cinemas at Warwick, Warwick Mall and Seekonk Route 6. Other theaters have it in 2-D. Check local listings.) You’ll be ducking when a yo-yo flies out of the screen over your heads, a trilobite sticks his antennae in your eyes, Brendan Fraser spits toothpaste in your face and a T-Rex comes charging at you. The film has one really terrific scare moment that made everyone in a preview audience jump off their seats. Best of all is a thrilling rollercoaster-like wild ride in runaway mine cars on rickety rails that gives the breathless feeling of riding in the cars as they careen in low tunnels and across deep chasms.

This time it’s Brendan Fraser, who once was George of the Jungle but is now better known for the Mummy movies, who gets trapped underground along with a pretty local guide Hannah (Anita Briem of The Tudors) and nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson of Bridge to Terabithia). Fraser’s Trevor Anderson is a not-very-captivating college professor — the few students in his class are bored — who sets out with the 13-year-old Sean to follow the trail of his long-missing brother. Max, who was Sean’s father, missing and presumed dead since departing for Iceland 11 years earlier to follow the underground route to the center of the Earth mapped out in Verne’s book. Hannah’s father, a discredited vulcanologist, also believed in Verne’s route, although Hannah and everyone else thought he was cuckoo.

Brevig’s film is lots of fun since the action is practically nonstop with one tight-corner, how-will-they-ever-get-out-

of-this adventure after another. Besides tight pacing and colorful adventures, the special effects are splendidly done. Brevig is an Academy Award-winning visual effects veteran (for Total Recall) and his impressive work can be seen in such other films as Pearl Harbor and Men in Black. Even adults will go along for the ride, even though its adventures seem geared to kids and will be familiar to anyone who has seen previous screen versions or knockoffs.

Nevertheless, it’s doubtful any audience member will not hold his or her breath as the trio tries to rappel down a 20-story hole or when they fall down and down and still down a very deep pit or when Sean tries to make his way across a series of boulders floating in mid-air over a deep chasm, held up by the underground magnetic force at the center of the Earth. Sometimes Sean finds himself upside down on one of them as it slowly rotates end to end.

Yikes! Pass the popcorn!

****Journey to the Center of the Earth

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem.

Rated: PG, contains violence, scary adventures.