Perspective: The Mysterious Island

This week's movie rental was Journey 2: The Mysterious Island ...

a 2012 American 3D science fiction adventure film directed by Brad Peyton. It is the second film in the Journey film series and the sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth. Following the first film, the sequel is based on another Jules Verne novel, this time The Mysterious Island. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzmán, and Kristin Davis.

I've read A Journey to the Center of the Earth and seen a few film versions of it, the latest being the first movie in this Journey series - Journey to the Center of the Earth with Brendan Fraser. It was kind of silly but fun enough that I decided to see this second movie in the series, The Mysterious Island. Fraser wasn't in this second film, and instead his place was taken by The Rock :)

Roger Ebert gave the movie 2 out of 4 stars in his review and as he wrote ... This is transcendently goofy. It isn't a "good" movie in the usual sense (or most senses), but it is jolly and good-natured, and Michael Caine and Dwayne Johnson are among the most likable of actors.

In the first movie, young Sean Anderson, whose scientist father went missing tracing Verne's journey to the center of the earth, gets together with his uncle (Brendan Fraser) to find his father. They use Verne's novel to locate the path to the center of the earth, an Icelandic volcano, and they come upon Sean's father there, dead. In this second movie, Sean and his step-father (The Rock) look for his grandfather (Caine) who's gone missing while searching for Verne's mysterious island. They trace the location to an area near Palau and look for someone to take them to the island's supposed location ...