Star: Luis Guzmán

Journey 2 The Mysterious Island (2012) – Josh Hutcherson, Dwayne Johnson and Michael Cain

This movie is full of trashy drama and juvenile remarks — it’s all a bit silly, but it has some decent action and curious story features too. I rate it Watchable — that’s a few levels below average, and it couldn’t be much worse, but it’s Watchable nevertheless, if you’re bored and haven’t seen it recently enough to remember how it goes — mainly thanks to its mix of strong and mediocore cast members. If you have seen it before and vaguely remember certain features — and maybe even if you haven’t or can’t — you may still find certain patches are highly skippable for the sake of your own sanity because not every fan of smooth action hero movies wants to sit through scenes of childish screaming, panicking and running past fictional creatures etc, or standing on a cliff and arguing about how to get down it, or even sailing a fantasy submarine vessel without much else going on, for prolonged durations. Indeed, certain patches are barely watchable, and highly skippable, but certain other patches are mildly amusing so it balances out as Watchable.

Cast Members

Josh Hutcherson stars as the rebellious teenager come young man. He’s acting straight here, acting interested in the girl, but he can’t hide his actual bentness to save his life.

Dwayne Johnson plays his stepfather who joins him on his journey as a rare chance to bond with him, and an aged Kristin Davis (from the obscenely named series in the city) plays his mother although we only see her briefly at the start and the end, when everyone’s home. Michael Caine plays the 2-years-missing grandfather who found the island before his grandson — he has the odd bit of banter with Dwayne Johnson, which is mildly amusing.

Then Luis Guzmán plays the pilot for hire, and Vanessa Hudgens plays his daughter — they both come along for the ride when their helicopter crashes in the storm around the island.

That’s pretty much the whole cast there, except the odd cop and homeowner who shows their face in the opening police chase scene.

See also

If you enjoyed this movie, you may also enjoy a slightly more mature movie of a similar theme: The Jungle Cruise (2021) — also starring Dwayne Johnson, but this time as the captain of the ship.

Cleaner (2007) – Samuel L Jackson

Cleaner (2007) is a simple story with an interesting angle. It shows Samuel L Jackson in his element as Tom Cutler, a retired policeman now working for himself as a dead body residue cleaner, often contracted by the local police department to clean up crime scenes.

This movie has a decent supporting cast, including Ed Harris & Luis Guzmán as detectives and former colleagues of Tom’s, plus Eva Mendes as the lead female and wife of the missing man.

I’m not normally a fan of this slow & gritty pace of movie – it’s like a random episode from a TV crime drama series – but Samuel makes it work. Still, it’s so basic, I can’t rate it any higher than just Watchable. I’m certainly not expecting to watch it again so long as I remember much about it, and there’s not much to be remembered except a few nice plot twists.