Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Certified: U
Duration: 94 minutes
Directed by: Brad Peyton
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Hudgens, Michael Caine, Kristin Davis, Luis Guzman, Anna Colwell
KRS release

In 2008, Journey to the Centre of the Earth was quite a hit, paving the way in 3D for the global phenomenon that Avatar was to become.

Now along comes the sequel, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, which is aimed fair and square at young audiences.

It is a colourful movie, which moves at lightning-speed. Despite a poor script, Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, manages to pull it off.

The actor has a real knack for comedy. Just see him do “The Pec Poc of Love” with berries, or sing What a Wonderful World to catch my drift.

Journey 2 is a rollercoaster ride from beginning to end but you never get the feel that anyone is in danger; it’s an old school reel yarn but with a much bigger budget.

Josh Hutcherson once again takes on the role of junior explorer Sean Anderson. At the beginning of the film, he is being chased by the police. He has just attempted to break in a satellite station to decode a scrambled signal.

The youngster is always arguing with his new stepdad Hank (Dwayne Johnson). That is when the latter’s past as a codebreaker for the Navy comes in handy. He uses the Morse code to decode the signal.

The message is from Sean’s seldom-present grandfather Alexander (Michael Caine) who claims to have found the Mysterious Island that Jules Verne had written about.

Despite poor script, The Rock manages to pull it off

Soon Hank and Sean are on their way to Palau. But getting to their destination proves troublesome. Only poor Gabato (Luiz Guzman) and daughter Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens) accept to fly them there on their rundown helicopter.

Here they get caught in a whirling tornado and are thrown onto a mysterious island where they discover Alexander, a volcano that spews gold, pygmy elephants and giant-sized lizards.

They avoid getting caught by bee-hunting birds, battle it out with a 10,000-watt moray and find the Nautilus from Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

The script is simply an excuse for the actors to move from one action sequence to another. However, good use is made of the special effects. Thus, the flying sequences are quite a thrill as is the chase from a reptile whose eggs have been disturbed by the group. The film has some nice retro touches, especially in the design of the Nautilus and the scene in which the group is walking through a plastic-kind of field with weird trees surrounding them.

Mr Hutcherson seems to be a bit too old to play the young teenager in his first bouts of puppy love. Mr Caine is saddled with a character that is selfish and a bit too sarcastic for my liking. Luiz Guzman may be hilarious at times but he is too much of a Latino stereotype. Vanessa Hudgens once more looks really good on screen even but she is not given much to do.

Mr Johnson, on the other hand, is the star of the film. He turns what was is supposed to be a supporting role into a winning one. Just watch him play the ukulele. He is unashamed of making the audience smile despite his action hero persona and that is what makes him so endearing.

The end result is a lightweight adventure that will surely entertain the socks off its young audience.