Journey 2: The Mysterious Island: Review By Bawnian©-Dexeus

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a 2012 live action 3D movie.

Directed by: Brad Peyton

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzmán, and Kristin Davis.

For the second time we explore famous French writer Jules Vern's novels, with The Mysterious Island. By now, everyone should know that to a certain degree of fiction, we are to believe the author of the famous novels has already explored the same adventure. Like I said in Center of the Earth, its better not to find the logic of it all, unless you wish to loose precious neurons.

We embark on a new journey with Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson) and his stepfather Hank Parsons (Dwayne Johnson) as they travel to the Mysterious Island, with two other explores in search of Sean's grandfather played by Michael Caine. Now, I don't need to tell you how random it was to listen to the dialog from point A to B that our lead actors take to find the island, but, for argument sake, this movie is only worth the admission for parents to entertain their kids white they spend 90 minutes looking at their watches. This movie is basically a 50/50 for the viewers.

At first, when watching the trailer, I asked myself "Didin't The Rock quit making kid movies?" But hey, all in good fun. However, I expected Dwayne to be more physical in his role, playing a cop and all and considering that he's a walking machine with muscles. Here, the most action we get from him is when he and Michael Caine got at it with their paternal insults. More surprisingly though, is that he isn't the meathead you'd expect; he actually uses intelligence to save the day. Who would have thought? Like many have asked, even I don't know how Michael Caine got involved in this project, but your guess is as good as mine. Although, I'm still shocked Ben Kingsley got involved with The Dictator, but that's a review for another time.

The visuals are on par with the previous movie, and have our actors interact more with their surroundings, even if it's pretty obvious they are added into most of the CGI universe, for example: them flying the titan bees. But kids with their 3D glasses and their sponge for brains will be hypnotized by the visuals and not pay attention to he dialog, or the small love story that keeps getting in the way. Seriously? Not even my nephew cares about that. But all in good fun the best part of the visuals was escaping the Toruk Makto sized birds up to the collision scene, which, I must say, well done. The 3D must have been worth it for that scene.

Overall, an easy money grab for the studios and an excuse for kids to have relentless fun and make their parents suffer. 50/50. Once this hits Netflix, be very careful with the young ones.

Written by: Bawnian©-Dexeus.