Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D is the first ever live-action film to be released in the RealD 3D Cinema technology, which is a significant advance over the IMAX-type technology. The movie itself is not too great, but the 3D stuff is indeed stunningly impressive.

The movie is about a discredited science professor who goes backpacking across Iceland with his nephew Sean. The two find a cave that leads to an underground prehistoric-like world and eventually to the center of the earth. Of course, the story is based on Jules Verne's Voyage au centre de la Terre, the classic 1864 science fiction novel.

Brendan Fraser plays Trevor Anderson, who is joined by nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) in his quest to find the portal to the center of the Earth indicated on a copy of Jules Verne's book. They hook up with sexy guide Hannah Ásgeirsson (Anita Briem, and Icelandic herself) who leads them down into the planet's underground to find out what happened to the brother of Trevor, who is also Sean's father.

The movie is rather mediocre but is saved by the stunning, crisp 3D images which make use of the RealD 3D Cinema technology. Real D has very important advantages over classical 3D cinema. First of all, it uses a single projector which sends to the screen, alternatively, the right-eye frame and left-eye frame, and circularly polarizes these frames, clockwise for the right-eye and counterclockwise for the left-eye. This means that if you tilt your head, the 3D effect is still the same, whereas traditional projectors required you to have the head upright (because it used 45 degree polarization).

Also, RealD 3D features a higher framerate of 72 frames per second per eye, which ensures a very smooth 3D image lacking any flicker.

Other notable releases featuring RealD 3D were Chicken Little, Monster House, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Meet the Robinsons, Beowulf, Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert and U2 3D (U2's concert film based on the Vertigo Tour).