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Friday, February 10, 2012
MOVIE REVIEW
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 3-D
Adventures On Laughingstock Island
Buffoon central: Michael Caine as Alexander and Luis Guzmán as Gabato aka Bozo
the Clown, in Brad Peyton's comedy adventure "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
3-D".
Warner Brothers
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Friday,
February 10,
2012
In theaters in the U.S. and Canada today, Brad Peyton's fantasy family adventure
"Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 3-D" serves as a lighthearted joyful escapade
of foolishness and incoherence, not to be taken seriously but to be instantly
forgotten. This kind-of-sequel to the Jules Verne classic novel and film
adaptation "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" -- I confess that I've seen
neither the 2008 or 1959 editions -- is enjoyable, funny and charismatic if
nothing else.
Josh Hutcherson ("The Kids Are All Right") is the lone returning figure from the
2008 movie and the only one who takes the proceedings seriously -- too
seriously, perhaps. When inventor and explorer Grandpa Alexander Anderson
(Michael Caine) goes wandering off on a strange island, Sean (Mr. Hutcherson)
teams up with stepfather Hank (Dwayne Johnson) to find him. They, along
with Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens) and her father Gabato (Luis Guzmán) find
Anderson, and a place that resembles Atlantis, where rising waters threaten to
submerge them all within a few short days. Ever the loving father, Gabato
wants to make sure Kailani gets to college, and he'll try anything to
make it happen.
The film's 3-D is functional enough to be adequate and works best in comedy
routines involving Mr. Johnson and Mr. Hutcherson. The former is an
onscreen father figure to the latter, and the tension that comes with
adolescence and living with the new boyfriend to Sean's mother Liz (Kristin
Davis, sadly glimpsed ever-so-briefly here) is the biggest high-stakes theater
of an otherwise sleepy, shiny happy people mess. Oddly, I managed to enjoy
this spectacle much more than I thought possible, despite its shortcomings.
(The film's 90 minute running time may be chiefly responsible.) Mr.
Johnson parodies himself on occasion, combining comedy with the can-do-tough guy
attitude audiences have naturally come to expect whenever the muscular actor
appears in a film. He's always fresh and witty, even when he's familiar.
Despite a lackluster story and script by brothers Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn and
numerous "strange" moments or inconsistencies -- large eggs on land that are
close together when the intrepid group are trying to find Alexander suddenly
have enormous spaces between them when the group is on the run from imminent
peril -- "Journey 2" allows itself many laughs, although too much of them come
at the expense of Mr. Guzmán's Gabato, an all-too sad advertisement for
buffoonery, plasticity and stereotype if there ever was one.
While Mr. Guzmán, like the rest of the cast, is clearly having a good time, his
exaggerated act and nervous ninny whine grows tiresome and more self-degrading
by the minute. The talented character actor is both the film's prankster
epicenter and its biggest sour note, though in a maddening way one can't help
but laugh at and with him, if only for five minutes. The film's story,
hardly a model of clarity, culminating in its sudden shift six months into the
future without any sense of where the story stands in the present, is the
plainest case of "rush this turkey past the editor" one can devise.
(There's plenty of material from the
"Avatar" cutting room floor, or maybe the
"Avatar" material is from the "Journey" 2008 cutting room floor.
All I know is, those noisy
lizard thingy-things simply can't keep quiet.)
There are playful barbs between Mr. Caine and Mr. Johnson, who effortlessly
ping-pong light insults and other assorted rejoinders off each other long enough to
sustain the amount of merriment and mirth necessary to distract the audience
from the donut hole plot and storyline. If the 3-D can mesmerize, and
the cast can create sufficient mayhem, and there's at least one close-up shot of
Ms. Hudgens' rear-end, cleavage and mid-rift, then 15-year-old boys will be
happy.
By the way, I'd ask those same 15-year-olds: ever tried swimming with a
dislocated ankle? How about underwater? If not, they should give it
the old not-quite college try and emulate our boy Sean --
who has either slipped a lifetime supply of morphine into his system that the
3-D effects hid or has taken some major league Quaaludes or there's BP Gulf
Coast 2010 amounts of anesthetic in that mythical ole Atlantis water.
With: Anna Colwell.
"Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 3-D" is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association Of America
for some adventure action and, brief mild language. The
film's running time is one hour and 34 minutes.
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