JOURNEY 2: MYSTERIOUS ISLAND – The Review

Serviceable family fare for the undemanding, JOURNEY 2: MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a dumbed-down but fun update of the 1874 Jules Verne classic and the extremely entertaining Ray Harryhausen film version (with a great Bernard Herrmann score) from 1961. This cheesy new adaptation may give adult viewers a headache but it’s a fast-moving, old-fashioned adventure romp, built for short attention spans and maximum popcorn consumption. More a theme-park ride than a full-blooded movie, it goes down easy enough to recommend.

A loose sequel to the 2008 hit JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, JOURNEY 2 begins when that film’s young protagonist Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson) receives a cryptic coded signal from his grandfather (Michael Caine),  trapped on a mysterious island located in the Pacific where no island should exist. Sean’s stepfather Hank (Dwayne Johnson – replacing Brendan Fraser who played the kid’s uncle in the first film) uses his Navy Morse Code skills to decipher the message and the two team up with a helicopter pilot (Luis Guzman) and his foxy daughter (Vanessa Hudgens) to find the island, rescue Grampa, and escape before they’re all buried under the rising sea.

If you’ve got some free time and want to have a fun 3D experience, you could do a lot worse than JOURNEY 2: MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. There isn’t anything exactly wrong with it but outside of encounters with tiny elephants, giant lizards and birds, a gold-spewing volcano, bees you can ride on, the lost city of Atlantis, and the Nautilus (sans Cpt Nemo) , there’s not much to it. With a lively, comical tone that never takes anything seriously, JOURNEY 2 MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is  about spectacle, so characters and script are of secondary concern. This is all about making the digital world come to life and having things jump out of the screen at us. The 3-D work is done very well but, after 30 minutes (or so) of eye-popping imagery, one starts to desire more. The movie can’t deliver anything deep, but it helps that Johnson, Caine, and especially the very funny Guzman give themselves over to the thrill ride completely even though the movie views them as inconsequential relative to the effects. Director Brad Peyton cuts right to the chase in this breezy 90-minute guilty pleasure. He clearly knows his target audience has the attention span of a mosquito so he piles on the action, and barely manages to keep the sense of wonder crucial to the story alive. It’s clunky and simpleminded, but the funloving cast and CG effects make it an enjoyable ride. Mostly the 3D is used with exuberance and a certain flamboyant show-off style, which is great fun for a lightweight movie like this. Adjust your expectations and JOURNEY 2: MYSTERIOUS ISLAND won’t disappoint. As an extra bonus, the film is preceded by Daffy’s Rhapsody, a funny new 3D cartoon featuring Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd that was built around an old recording of the late Mel Blanc as Daffy.

3 of 5 Pec Pops of Love

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