On top of blogging, writing articles, studying for my MA, running Minicine and actually trying to earn some money, there’s my number one priority, being a dad to my five year old son Corey. Being the film nerd that I am, this obviously incorporates a weekly visit to the cinema. What I often find myself doing in the film-blogosphere, is when a fellow adult film nerd has something to say about a kids’ or family film, I always feel obliged to convey the reaction of my son, whose inability to yet articulate his opinion in the networked public sphere means that it’s only fair that I try to represent it.
This has led me to decide that on our frequent trips to the Cineworld in the centre of Bradford to see the latest mainstream family action film or children’s animated film, I will endeavour to post our collective reaction. What follows then, is a family review. It will be my opinion (from a dad’s capacity) along with comments on how I saw my son experience it and some direct comment from him.
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island stars The Rock (who has an actual real name, and a character name in the film, but it isn’t particularly important – he will be referred to throughout as his alias created during his time as a professional wrestler). He is step dad to a typically grumpy teenage boy, Sean (Josh Hutcherson) who has intercepted a satellite transmission from what he believes to be his adventurer grandad (Michael Caine). In an attempt to bond with his step son, The Rock decides to humour him on this adventure, which leads them to the island of Palau, where they enlist the help of helicopter pilot, and token comedy ethnic character Gabato (Luis Guzmán) and his daughter Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens), the obligatory super-hot romantic interest for the teenage boy. This band of stock characters then set sail (ok flight) for these mysterious coordinates. Adventure ensues.
Putting numerous glaring plot contrivances, inconsistencies, appropriately placed logs and injuries that fluctuate between major impedances and mild inconvenience, adventure really does ensue. It’s not quite adventurous maximus, but it does have a swashbuckling tone that carried Corey away with it.
As a parent, more important than the visceral enjoyment (had by myself and/or my son) of the chase scenes, the comedy and the spectacle in general, I am more interested in the representation of the characters, whether questionable or admirable. The clearest questionable instance here is the wacky Palauan helicopter pilot. Doubtless he is comedic, and his slapstick antics certainly had Corey chucking, but more than relied on the comedy ethnic stock character. One excusable aspect is that he isn’t wholly representative of the cultural other; he is clearly set apart from the other island inhabitants as the wacky one, thus diffusing the idea that all these non-Americans are this zany. Further, his daughter is admirably sassy, with much more acumen than her dad, and the ability to fend for herself on the island. It’s a shame she is reduced to the damsel in distress role at one point, and that her falling for the white American male is only too inevitable, but I have seen much more pointless women roles in such films; in comparison she fares quite well. Finally with regard to the cultural other, let us not forget that the all American hero in this story is The Rock, who is himself half African-American, half Samoan.
Anyway, that’s enough of my culture-politics ranting; one great feature of the film is not only its adventurous tone, but the emphasis put on the magic of books. There is constant reference to the adventurous island based novels from Verne, Stevenson and Swift. So while being in the medium of high concept spectacle laden blockbuster film, it openly promotes an interest in literature, which having had a relatively literary-ignorant childhood myself, I’m keen for my son to buy whole heartedly into the magic of books.
When we first saw the trailer to this film prior to Puss in Boots, Corey immediately responded with ‘that… looks… awesome’. Well in his eyes, the film didn’t fail to live up to the hype, evident in the way he was ducking and diving in his seat during the action scenes, laughing when the film wanted him to, and gasping appropriately.
I’ll go through some of the things he had to say. ‘I loved the berry bit; proper made me laugh’. Here he’s referring to a part of the film where The Rock tries to give Sean some advice on seducing ladies. He tells him he needs to ‘flex his pecks’. In actual fact this scene only serves to show off the 3D as he gets people to throw berries at him while he bounces them around with his pecks (not that we witnessed the 3D, my son hates wearing the glasses so we just go to 2D screenings).
He had a pretty concrete reaction to a part in the film where Sean injured his ankle. When asking him about the film after, he said ‘the sad news: that boy broke his ankle. I thought he was gonna die’. Okay Corey, a bit drastic, but obviously the plot mechanic of peril and empathy for an injured protagonist worked on him.
Hollywood is obviously succeeding in promoting its version of normality in heterosexual relationships and that ingrained institution of marriage, because when I ask which characters he liked, he replies: ‘I really liked that girl. I wanna marry her’.
There was one scene we both reacted to in slightly different ways. In a moment of cross generation male bonding, The Rock sings a song on the always humorous instrument, the Ukulele. The instrument in general had Corey in stitches, and it was a light hearted and quite touching scene, which was followed by a father-son character revelation that actually almost brought a tear to my eye. It was well timed and caught me on the back foot, coming straight after such a light hearted scene.
Finally, the primary objective of such a film, the spectacle, seemed to work well, as Corey became quite animated when explaining how he felt about a couple of the set pieces. ‘The lizard was awesome. He just proper scared one of those guys’ (you’ll notice he uses the word ‘proper’ quite frequently). The part he was even more animated about, was a part where I actually saw how much he jumped during the film: ‘when that woman tried to get the book. I was just standing up. I thought, woah summat’s gonna happen, then booof and I fell back into my chair’. Obviously the medium of the written word can’t get across how he acted that out just as he told me, but it has obviously stuck with him.
So there you go, based on that father-son review, you decide whether it’s the kind of exhilarating film you’d like to see. At least you have received a reading of the film (though obviously mediated through me) from part of its target demographic of an open minded child.
Mike McKenny is The Culture Vulture’s film editor. If you have any film related stories, articles, reviews with a twist, etc, contact him on mike.mckenny1983@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @DestroyApathy