Viagem 2: A Ilha Misteriosa

This movie lacks what it takes to take an Oscar Award, lacks the sensitivity and depth....blah blah blah, forget all that noise...go see the movie with your kids they would love it.

This movie is for Kids, and parents who have kids. I took my daughter to see it today in 3D. Excellent visual effects, entire movie had effects, you did not take your glasses off at all or you'd miss the next 3d effect that is right around the corner. The cast was good, The Rock was great and jokes were funny, this movie was child safe and had everything that your young one would want, lots of effects, action, above and underwater. I would definitely recommend it in 3D. The pace of movie is fast and if you have kids ....you can appreciate this.

I rated this movie for what it is...a kids movie. Are you going to leave the theater discussing the virtues of Plato? NO! but your kids will be going on about this and that in the movie. Worth Admission? Absolutely. Asked my daughter what she rated it....9.5 she said. Was it worth it? When your child says 9.5 what the heck else matters?????

Somewhere in Hollywood there are people who think children are morons and when they set up to make a kid movie, they do it starting with this premise. Morons they may be, but not in the sense their brains don't work well, but because they don't have enough experience. As such, this kind of films appear to me made for retarded (in the real sense of the word) people.

As a sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth from 2008, it is not that bad. The only character remaining, though, is Josh Hutcherson's, so I was at first confused if this is the sequel to that film or to Race to Witch Mountain, which stared Dwayne Johnson and some kids. Also, all the characters are male but for a teen that has no real role in the film. So I was really missing Anita Briem.

The effects were not bad, rather average. The plot itself, taken from afar and with the grain of salt that one has to take with a movie made for children, had potential. I also liked how the characters completed one another, instead of the lone hero knowing and doing everything. However the script to this plot was so incredibly bad that I could not like it, no matter how much I tried.

Bottom line: a franchise dedicated to the sense of wonder and discovery in Jules Verne's books should make more of an effort for actual education. Dropping occasional (and conflicting) science facts that don't even apply to the situation is not enough. Also, having silly to the point of idiotic characters doesn't really inspire kids, either. I grew up with the books of Jules Verne. This entire series has nothing to do with them.

"We'll have all the wealth we'll ever need, just as long as we're together!" Kailani (Vanessa Hudgins)

If Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a parody of adventure movies (see the above quote), then I missed the humor, for there is enough cheese in the awful CGI to make a new moon. This loose sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth happily subs Dwayne Johnson for Brendan Fraser, but neither actor should include these third-rate adventures on their vitae.

Combining Jules Verne, Jonathan Swift, and Robert Louis Stevenson, Journey 2 takes the crew to a mysterious Island where Sean (Josh Hutcherson from Journey to the Center of the Earth) looks for his grandfather, Alexander( Michael Caine). When he does find him, we find an aging actor at the nadir of his career, overacting an eccentric adventurer with fake smiles and laughs to embarrass those of us who remember his marvelous Peachy in a superior adventure, The Man Who would be King. Wait, wait, maybe Caine is out-cheesed by Luis Guzman as a bumbling Latino father of the lovely Vanessa Hudgins, playing his daughter.

Johnson as Sean's step father has his moment singing "What a Wonderful World" on a ukulele around a campfire; yes, I am serious—see for yourself. No valley low enough for director Brad Peyton to go to achieve the peak of cheese.

With an island populated by dwarf elephants and sharks and giant bees (see the crew navigate these bugs to achieve an absurdity even Harry Potter in his games wouldn't attempt), we also find the original Verne Nautilus to get back home, which is where you'll comfortably be but briefly until you check your bank account to assess how much this non-adventure cost you and your family. Or why it was worth it to see Journey 2 in 3-D when 2-D is embarrassing enough.

Better to turn on reruns of Gilligan's Island.

The 17-year-old Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson) receives a coded signal and his stepfather Hank (Dwayne Johnson) helps him to decipher the message. They find that Sean's grandfather Alexander Anderson (Michael Caine) has found the mysterious island in the Pacific described by Julio Verne and two other writers in their novels.

The stubborn Sean wants to travel to the coordinates and Hank decides to buy the tickets and travel with the teenager to a small island nearby the location. They rent an old helicopter owned by the locals Gabato (Luis Guzmán) and his teenage daughter Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens) and the group heads to the unknown spot. Along their journey, they cross a hurricane and crash in the island. They find a beautiful and dangerous place, surrounded by forests, volcanoes with lava of gold and menacing life forms. The meet also the old Alexander and Hank discovers that the island is sinking. Now their only chance to survive is to find the legendary Nautilus.

"Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" is a movie with a trailer that is better than the film itself. The lame screenplay begins in a fast pace, with Hank and Sean guessing to quickly the message. The story is very weak and the film is supported by the special effects only. The spoiled Sean and the rude Alexander are detestable characters and Gabato is stupid and annoying and never funny as supposed to be. Hank is multi- skilled in codes, hydraulic and electric engineering, medicine, and music and diving. In the end, "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" is a very disappointing adventure. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Viagem 2: A Ilha Misteriosa" ("Journey 2: The Mysterious Island")

"Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" is a blue-screen CGI extravaganza that is mixed in with the picturesque Hawaii locations, but containing a plot that is essentially all told in the trailer and presented with the dynamics of an amusement park tour. The "2" in "Journey 2" is because it is the sequel to the 2008 movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth"; the "The Mysterious Island" in the title because both movies are both derived from books by Jules Verne.

Watching "Journey 2" is like being stuck in a vacation with five slightly unpleasant people with slightly uncomfortable dynamics between. Sean (Hutcherson) is bratty and overly entitled, Hank (Johnson) his stepfather and Alexander (Caine) his grandfather are constantly bickering, the tour guide Gabato (Guzman) is overly emasculated and his daughter Kailani (Hudgens) surly.

The 3D, the CGI of the island and the sets are perhaps main draw of the movie. We see elephants as big as cats and bees as big as cars. The effects are mostly impressive all around but it never manages to find the right pace or impact because it just comes in one after another without the dramatic tension. It's hard to care about the perils or be in awe at what's shown when the characters are so thin.

After watching the movie, I get this feeling that the Rock had way too much creative input in the movie. His absurd peck joke from the trailer aside, his character is a prize-winning Navy cryptographer who also knows structural engineering and who can also play a mean ukulele and really hold down a tune (although awful singing truth be told); This all hints at the big guy pretending to be smart and sensitive. Combine this with the almost palpable resentment between him and Caine and the sickening obsequiousness of Guzman towards him, it just feels uncomfortable.

While the movie is impressive as a 3D CGI set piece, it is severely let down by the characters. A lot of kids/family movies lately have this undertone of spoiled rich American kid gets everything he wants but this movie does this in a very ugly way. Kids will overlook all these flaws in the movie and be mesmerized by the 3D and special effects but I think adults would find it a bit pointless and uncomfortable. Empty entertainment for kids is my view of this movie.