Because Johnson is the best part of “Journey 2,” proving that his casting in a variety of recent film sequels—like last year’s “Fast Five,” and this upcoming summer’s “G.I. Joe: Retaliation”—is one of the smartest moves Hollywood has been making lately. The man is physically terrifying, a ridiculously muscled mass, but also charming, warm, and endearing. Who could resist that blindingly white grin? No one! Moms at a recent press screening of “Journey 2” couldn’t get enough!
The movie itself is nothing special in the plot department. It’s a sequel to 2008’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” starring Brendan Fraser (fun fact: when Fraser starred in “The Mummy”, Johnson starred in its spinoff “The Scorpion King”; they go way back!). In that film, young Sean (Josh Hutcherson) searched for his missing father and used clues from Jules Verne’s classic novel “A Journey to the Center of the Earth” to discover what happened to him. Now, years later, Sean is an avid Vernian—believing that the places the author wrote about are in fact real—and is studying the author’s texts to discover where “The Mysterious Island” he wrote about in an 1875 book is located. Sean hijacks satellite signals, rides his motorbike into a neighbor’s pool, and is basically a smart kid with an uncontrollable rebellious streak.
And he’s also unable to get along with his new stepfather Hank (Johnson), who is kind and tries to be understanding but fails to connect with the teen in any way—until he helps him break a code, a kind of distress signal, that Sean believes was sent from the island by his missing grandfather, Alexander (Michael Caine). Together Hank and Sean trek off to the island nation Palau in the Pacific Ocean, where they charter a helicopter flown by the goofy Gabato (Luis Guzmán) and his beautiful, cold daughter Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens) to take them where they think the Mysterious Island is.
Oh, but what’s that? Hurricanes suck the helicopter into a vortex that drops them onto the Mysterious Island, with no way to leave? Nooo!!
OK, seriously, we all knew this was coming. But the film picks up in a pleasant way once Hank, Sean, Gabato, and Kailani are dumped onto the island paradise, where small things are big (huge insects) and big things are small (itty-bitty elephants). Whether they’ll find Alexander and get off the island is never in question, really, but director Brad Peyton and writers Brian and Mark Gunn do a good job using 3-D and bringing Sean and Hank together in the process. Honestly, who wouldn’t bond after facing off with a gigantic lizard, riding bees, and mocking mini-sharks? It’s impossible.
But Johnson and Hutcherson amp up the relationship with a nice, comedic play off one another, especially in a scene when Hank tries to give the lovestruck Sean advice about how to get Kailani to notice him. By far the best use of 3-D in the film, watching berries bounce off Johnson’s popping pecs, is also one of its funniest moments, too.
Hudgens is somewhat expendable, just another whiny teen girl character who never fully comes into her own (and is weirdly treated like eye candy in her first scene, when the camera lingers over her tank top). But she’s balanced out by Guzmán’s physical comedy and embracing of a bromance relationship with Johnson’s Hank. And though Hudgens’ and Guzmán’s characters aren’t essential to the story, per se, they do round out the cast in a pleasant way (and of course, so does Caine, whose cocky Britishness is always appreciated).
No, “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” isn’t going to win awards or grab any real critical attention. But as an entertaining, enjoyable family flick that does service to the work of Verne and other adventure writers like Robert Louis Stevenson and Jonathan Swift, “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” works. And yes, you can thank The Rock for that.
