Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Lizards are punched, pecs are flexed and bumblebees are mounted in Brad Peyton’s relentlessly goofy follow-up to “Journey to the Centre of the Earth,” the 2008 family adventure flick that helped kick-start the ongoing 3D craze (damn that film!). “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” is much the same as its worldwide hit of a predecessor; it’s a family-friendly B-movie, it’s presented in three eye-prodding dimensions and it’s stuffed full of oversized, computer-animated creatures. What’s missing, aside from Brendan “Furry Vengeance” Fraser, is an engaging narrative, heart-racing set-pieces and a competently written script, although “Journey 1” could hardly preach about these attributes.

Taking over the leading role abandoned by Fraser (perhaps he’s busy filming “The Mummy IV: The Search for More Mummy”) is a head-shaven, muscle-bound Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who here furthers the family-friendly image he displayed very well in “Race to Witch Mountain” and not so well in “The Tooth Fairy.” In “Journey 2,” Johnson plays Hank Parsons, the concerned step-father of Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson, reprising his role from the first film), to whom we are reintroduced as he attempts to outrun the police on a motorbike.

He is caught, but no charges are pressed against him. As it turns out, Sean was attempting to break into a satellite research facility to strengthen a signal broadcast he picked up at home. Together, Sean and Hank decode the message, which reveals that the fictional islands portrayed in Jules Verne’s “The Mysterious Island,” Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” and Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” are in fact the same island, and that this island is real; it also leads them to discovering the exact coordinates of this mysterious island, which it turns out is right next to Palau.

So, step-father and step-son head off to Palau, where they enquire about a guide; what they get is a dodgy helicopter pilot named Gabato (Luis Guzman, “Arthur”) and Gabato’s daughter, Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens, “Sucker Punch”), with whom Sean immediately falls in love. The foursome head off in the helicopter towards the island’s coordinates and encounter a tornado, into which they are all sucked and wind up on the shore of – gasp – a mysterious island!

This island, a mostly tropical one, is a technical marvel and a feast for the eyes. It’s vibrantly rendered, epic in scale and would provide plenty of excitement for Indiana Jones, let alone the five protagonists of “Journey 2.” Among other things, the island contains giant lizards, giant ants, giant millipedes, tiny elephants, treacherous mountains and a smoking volcano. The trouble is, it becomes a bit samey after a while, which is problematic, given that the story can’t rely on the generally uninteresting characters to sustain one’s attention, instead having to constantly rely on ginormous creatures crawling and gliding their way across the screen; by the time you get to the giant spiders, you’ll be a little too indifferent to roll your eyes.

It is on the island that Sean finds his long lost grandfather, Alexander Anderson (Sir Michael Caine, if you can believe it), an enthusiastic adventurer. It was Alexander who sent the broadcast, a distress signal, and it turns out a signal can only be sent out from the island once a fortnight, so the five will have to stay put until then. They also discover that every 140 years or so the island is entirely immersed underwater, and it seems the next big flood is fast approaching.

I believe “Journey 2” was written with a love and admiration for the works of Jules Verne, author of both “A Journey to the Centre of the Earth” and indeed “The Mysterious Island.” Unfortunately, the film’s two writers, cousins Brian and Mark Gunn, are the guys who previously gave us “Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” so any respect the two have for Verne is generally clouded over by an air of gormless stupidity. Indeed, their script is a classic case of dumbed-down source material, ending up as a sloppily written clash between CGI-laden adventurism and painstakingly unfunny banter shared between the characters. And the wittiest the film gets is the pun in the title; it’s “journey 2 (to) the mysterious island,” geddit?

Your children will enjoy “Journey 2,” of this I have no doubt. You may also find yourself enjoying the film, but I think this is significantly less likely. The film is pure nonsense from start to finish; it’s moderately amusing and perfectly harmless nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless. If you like that sort of thing, go for it. If not, avoid it like you would a giant buzzing bumblebee being ridden by Sir Michael Caine; just out of interest, would the Queen take away a knighthood for bumblebee-riding or hand one out for it?

5/10