Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - Movie Review

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - Movie Review

By Jose

Plot:

Sean Anderson partners with his mom's boyfriend on a mission to find his grandfather, who is thought to be missing on a mythical island.

Cast:

Josh Hutcherson (Sean Anderson), Dwayne Johnson (Hank), Michael Caine (Alexander), Luis Guzman (Gabato), Vanessa Hudgens (Kailani), Kristin Davis (Liz)

Review:

Journey 2 is a fun, fast paced, family film. Full of excitement and action and eye catching visuals.

Journey 2 actually starts off pretty fast, with Sean (Josh) on a motorcycle being chased by police. Soon crashing in a pool and caught. His step-father Hank (Dwayne) picks him up and takes him home. Within minutes we learn that Sean was using satellites to pick up a coded message from his lost grandfather. Later Hank, being an ex SEAL, helps Sean decode the message finding the location of the Mysterious Island from Jules Verne’s books.

Getting to the island proves difficult and we soon see Sean, Hank, and tour guide Gabato (Guzman) and his daughter Kalian (Vanessa) caught in a storm and there helicopter destroyed. They find themselves on the island searching for Sean’s grandfather. They notice that the wildlife are opposite in size. Like elephants are the size of dogs and lizards and insects are large dinosaur sized beasts. There is a really great action scene that happens with a giant lizard chasing after the group with plenty of close calls. They are saved by Alexander (Caine) and soon find themselves looking for a way off the island. Which turns out to be actually Atlantis. And sinking back into the ocean.

Journey 2 is an extremely fast paced movie. It just starts off and doesn’t slow down. Like in other films where the beginning is slow and dialogue or story heavy and then the action starts. This movie starts you off fast and throws introductions out quickly. Later on we get some slower paced scenes that give us a chance to see and learn more about our characters. Like how Hank’s father left him when he was young. How Alexander is pained about leaving his family behind for so many years. How Gabato wants to give Kailani everything so she can go to college. You get that underlining story of wanting to do good for your kids or trying to redeem yourself for past failures.

The island itself is really well made and looks like how a mysterious island would look like. Crazy and wild with animals bigger than what they should be. Volcanoes that spew out molten gold. I love how they connected 20,000 Leagues under the sea and how Captain Nemo’s tomb and Nautilus submarine.

I do have to speak about the 3D and how it was the best 3D I have seen used in a movie recently. I am not sure if they upgraded the tech and cameras. I don’t follow that so I can’t tell you. But the 3D was so good in Journey 2. Especially with when the cast are using giant bees to fly around and these giant birds swoop down and attack them. Chasing them around the forest. And you need to see how the 3D is used when Hank and Sean are under the ocean trying to power up the Nautilus by using a harpoon and a giant electric eel. The harpoon flies right at you. Hell earlier when the helicopter is being sucked into the storm and the debris was flying everywhere I thought an actual piece of dirt flew into my eyes.

I do want to mention a couple more things that I would consider T&A. Not dirty stuff though. A quick shirtless Josh Hutcherson and a barley wearing clothing Vanessa Hudgens aside. I want to talk about the pecs. Hank’s dancing pecs. There is a scene where Hank is talking to Sean about how to impress girls and tells him that Sean needs to pump him pecs. So he starts doing it and then Hank tells him to bounce a berry off on them . He does and it gets launched toward the audience. Hank then tells him to keep doing it to “feed the pec”. Sean says no and then out of nowhere Gabato (Guzman) pops out with a handful of berries and says “I want to feed them” and proceeds to throw berry after berry at Hank. They fly everywhere, hitting Sean and then one in Gabato’s mouth. It was a hilarious scene.

Final Thoughts:

Great movie and so much fun. Good for all ages really. The whole cast seemed to love their roles and it showed. The action was good and the story was straight forward and clear. They even leave it open at the end for a possible third film.

* Did they seriously get a close up of Vanessa Hudgens short shorts ass while she was climbing out of Nemo’s tomb?

Rating: 4 out of 5