Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

In 2007, Trevor Anderson is a Bostonian volcanologist whose 13-year-old nephew, Sean, is supposed to spend ten days with him. Trevor learns at work that his brother’s lab is being shut down because of a lack of funding. Trevor has forgotten that Sean is coming until he receives several messages from Sean’s mother. 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, in July 1997. 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. In the box, Trevor discovers the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Inside the book Trevor finds notes written by his late brother. Trevor goes to his laboratory to find out more about the notes. There he realizes that he must go to Iceland to investigate for himself.

He intends to send Sean back to his mother, but relents at Sean’s protest and brings Sean to Iceland with him. They start by looking for another volcanologist. When they get to that scientist’s institution, they meet his daughter Hannah, who informs them he is dead. She also tells them that both her father and Max believed that Jules Verne’s books were factual accounts. However she offers to help them climb up to the instrument that has suddenly started sending data again. While hiking the mountain a lightning storm forces the three into a cave. The cave entrance collapses, trapping them, so they have no alternative but to go deeper in the cave, which turns out to be an abandoned mine. Trevor, Sean, and Hannah investigate farther into the mine until they fall into a deep hole, taking them to the “Center of the Earth”. They all continue until they discover a cave-dwelling that Max lived in. Trevor and Sean find Max’s old journal. Hannah and Trevor discover Max’s dead body and bury him.