Journey 2 The Mysterious Island Blu-ray Review

4th Jun 2012

No stranger to bad films throughout his career, especially between the late 1970s and 1980s, Michael Caine stars in another one and seems like a delirious madman at the prospect of playing his part, either that or he is simply enjoying and making the most it. In The Swarm (made in 1976) he was trying to save America from a particularly aggressive strain of nasty African bees in one of the classic turkeys of the 1970s. Here he is actually riding on one and swooping and avoiding a bee eating exotic bird. Nothing about this film makes a lot of sense. The title alone got me questioning: “I don’t remember there being a first Journey!” That’s before I realized this is probably some kind of text speak to get down with the kids.

The plot itself is loosely based off Jules Verne’s classic book ‘The Mysterious Island’ and here has a family of ‘Vernites’ in search of Verne’s stories for real and uncovering the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s legendary Victorian submarine as if the team are looking for the Holy Grail. The opening is rather jarring as it involves a youth on a motorbike being chased by the police through a refined American suburb until he lands in a swimming pool and is subsequently arrested by the police. His name is Adam (played by Josh Hutcherson) and is saved from jail by his step father Hank (the unfeasibly sized The Rock). It would appear there is no understanding between the pair and Mum (‘Sex and the City’ star Kristen Davis) is merely in the background. The next morning Hank tries to reach to the lad and between them within seconds they decipher a code from the boy’s missing grandfather who sends him coordinates to his location on the now discovered Vernian island. Later Hank buys the pair tickets to the South Pacific where Hank hopes to bond with him. On arriving they charter a rickety old helicopter where a local (Luis Guzman) and his daughter (Vanessa Hudgens – the foxy love interest) nearly don’t make it to the unknown island on the coordinates, crash lands in a storm where they find themselves on an island populated by cute pygmy elephants, tiny sharks (in one of the cleverer uses of CGI) and giant lizards, centipedes, birds and bees. They also come across the 17-year-old’s long lost grandfather (played with fun energy by Caine) and before long Hank realize that the volcanic island is sinking (he was ex-Navy) and they only have a few hours to find the famed Nautilus.

The reason this film is so bad is that it lacks any veiled attempt at believability – even if the CGI effects are supposed to be realistic, the pace of the story is just ridiculous. In minutes Hank and Adam crack a code, Hank has unbelievable intuition for a suburban guy and the way they all escape danger for the most part unharmed is too cartoon-like for belief. That brings me to the CGI itself. The island looks straight from a latter day Walt Disney cartoon and the flight of the bees is just way over the over the top, as is the escape on the crumbling island via the Nautilus. I get it, it’s a family film for a younger audience but these films can still be good. The CGI is just too much and the 3D effects come out so far in your face it just becomes a showcase for 3D. Recent statistics have shown that people are getting bored of 3D and does need to be used far more subtly than of late but there are, despite all its pitfalls some genuinely funny moments and dialogue; Caine is having fun all the way through, even Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson seems to be having fun despite his usual wooden performance as he bounces berries (towards the audience) off his bouncing moobs among other moments. Typically the film ends on a note that leaves the audience guessing that there might be another Vernian adventure (Journey 2 the Centre of the Earth perhaps?). Whichever, I recommend going back to the original 1961 adaptation of Verne’s novel with animation by Ray Harryhausen rather than CGI.