Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)

Director: Brad Peyton

Starring: Josh Hutcherson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine

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

I never wanted to watch this film. After watching the 1961 film ‘Mysterious Island’ I decided to watch ‘Journey 2: The Mysterious Island’ to see what a modernized version of Jules Verne’s novel would look like. I should have trusted my instincts. This atrocious film can be used as The Viewer’s Guide to Lazy Filmmaking’. I mean, seriously!!

Whether ‘Journey 2: The Mysterious Island’ is a remake of the 1961 film or simply another adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel, fact remains this essentially is the same story – but how on earth could they mess it up so badly?? From the acting (especially) to the (tweaked) story to the visuals (yup!!), this was bad on every level. Considering this to be a reasonably big budget film, the visual effects are incredibly bad. Now add all that silly cliched Hollywood (slapstick) humour and this is a film I hated from beginning to end. This was just really stupid.

Ok, so the film is about Sean (Josh Hutcherson) and his stepdad Hank (Dwayne Johnson) going on a quest to finding the mythical mysterious island. They also manage to decipher the clues to the island’s location way to easily, not to mention unbelievably. From the moment they arrived on the island, I couldn’t wait for the credits to roll. It honestly is as if they never took the movie serious and expected Dwayne Johnson to carry the film – which he probably did.

The romance interest was oh-so-cliched, felt forced and annoying (and might be enjoyed by a teen audience). Every attempt at emotion failed (miserably!). This film might please a young (very young) audience and should keep kids entertained for a bit, but it is way too stupid for a mature audience – unless you switch off all your brain cells and every emotion you might have and just try to enjoy it for the stupid movie it is. I couldn’t even do that, and found it almost unwatchable. Sorry, I hated this!

The 1961 film ‘Mysterious Island’ is an absolute masterpiece compared ‘Journey 2: The Mysterious Island’. Sure, the bugs in the latter looks more impressive, but everything else was just bad. This is lazy film making at its best…or should that be worst.

Despite what I – or the critics – thought of the movie, it was a box office success grossing $335 million on a $79 million budget. I guess there were a lot of kids out there who wanted to see this…

Would I watch it again? Enough said…