Journey 2 - The Mysterious Island (PG)

Teenager Sean Anderson, played by the competent Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games), sets off on a family, fun packed adventure, to the Mysterious Island to recover his Grandfather, Legend Michael Caine. His mother’s boy friend Hank, hammed by the muscle bound Dwayne Johnson (The Scorpion King) insists on tagging along determined to bond with the troublesome youth. But somehow they need to fly to the Island and so enlist the annoying Gabato, Luis Guzmán and his daughter, another young rising star Vanessa Hudgens.

Journey 2 is Director Brad Peyton’s second ‘big’ film and he handles it well seeing the family genre is so specialised. Once past some awkward family moments the film comes to life when they crash on the Island and begin encountering the wonders of the Island. Giant bees and birds, an erupting volcano, an underwater super sub and spectacular landscapes all contribute to make the film entertaining if not let down by the awkward relationship between Johnson and Caine their deadened attempts at humour bouncing of each other with little effect or laughs.

The two younger actors steal the show and although no doubt plenty of green screening was used their responses are real enough and their chemistry believable. Visually the graphics are quick and thrilling and designed to hold the younger age groups which it does well. Journey 2 begins slowly but ends well in an impressively dramatic fashion.

68/100 

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Actor Scores

Tom Cruise 80/100

Paula Patton 80/100

Simon Pegg 82/100

Jeremy Renner 60/100

Michael Nyqvist 45/100

(See Review Below)

The Darkest Hour (12A)

Chris Gorak, who is better known for his Art Direction in the late nineties, directs this Science Fiction invasion tale of survival and from the start you can see he struggles with character development and plot. The actors come across poorly in a scatter ball script which takes two potential entrepreneurs Emile Hirsch and Max Minghella who hitch up with two tourists Olivia Thirlby and Rachael Taylor on a desperate trek across Moscow. This seems a randomly bizarre setting but yet visually is striking and this is where the film demonstrates some strength. The thirty million pound budget was obviously spent on some impressive CGI which at times is visually effective and then disappointingly blocky and unimaginative. Particularly impressive are the huge mining columns that the aliens plunge into the cityscape and the way the human prey are vaporised, but diversely the aliens’ themselves are too simplistic when we catch a glimpse of them through their rotating shields.

Olivia Thirlby (No Strings Attached) is the only actor who comes out of the misdirection with any credibility and the short appearance of a little known actress, Veronika Vernadskaya who is actually Russian, adds some sense of reality to the location. There are some unpredictable aspects which just about move the plot on but the only real highlights in, the aptly named, The Darkest Hour are elements of the art direction and it falls short in all other categories.

34/100