Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

'Journey 2: The Mysterious Island' improves upon 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'. This is good fun. It's a shame that Brendan Fraser and Anita Briem were unable to reprise their respective roles, though the additions of Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Luis Guzmán and Vanessa Hudgens are all positives. Johnson has a few silly moments (berry pecs + "What a Wonderful World"), but all in all is fairly solid. The special effects, though still not as great as they should probably be, are upgraded, the score is also better. The plot is the main improvement, this location is more interesting than that of the last movie; admittedly the lame effects for the latter are quite the hindrance. Seems as if a third film from this series isn't completely dead in the water, despite the now twelve year gap. It's pretty surprising that it has yet to happen given the financial success of this and the 2008 flick - studios turning down money, that's a rarity!

Really good watch, would watch again, and can recommend. Great casting choices, great subject matter, and plenty of production value. When it comes down to it, I'm sure this is the movie that settled Dwayne Johnson as the guy for Jumanji. Josh Hutcherson and Vanessa Hudgens are really cute together and play off of each other really well. Michael Caine and Luis Guzmán both act really well with their character kids as well as Dwayne. The biggest actual problem I have with this is the insistence in 3d technology. It is really blatant and really weird sometimes. The iconic action scenes in this are amazing, and were probably not cost efficient at all: a giant lizard, bird or fish animated like this looks so good, but lasts for 5 minutes (?) and costs ridiculous amounts of money to get quality as good as this movie does. But it's the "no expense spared" attitude that really makes this a good movie watching experience. Yes, the writing is solid, and I love the idea of visiting the Mysterious Island, but the quality is what puts it over the top. Well worth the watch, but its the experience more than anything I can verbally express right now.