Netflix users can’t seem to get enough of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson this holiday season. The actor has held strong on the streamer’s in-house “Top 10” lists, and on Sunday he returned there with an oldie-but-goodie: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. It seems fans are eagerly revisiting the 2012 sci-fi family romp.
Johnson was one of several A-listers to headline the Netflix original film Red Notice this fall, setting a company record and earning widespread acclaim. Several of his other movies have had dalliances on Netflix’s Top 10 lists in recent weeks, including recent releases like Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and throwbacks like Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. For those who don’t recall, this is the sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), which was itself an adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1875 book The Mysterious Island.
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Johnson co-starred in Journey 2 with Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzmán, and Kristin Davis. It picks up four years after the events of Journey to the Center of the Earth – which Johnson was not in. The first movie is not streaming on Netflix but is available on Peacock’s free tier with ads. It starred Brendan Fraser and was an overall commercial and critical success.
The sequel finds Sean (Hutcherson) preoccupied with the events of the first movie and determined to continue searching for the mysterious island of the first book. His new stepfather Hank (Johnson) is trying to keep him out of trouble and bond with him at the same time, so he uses his background as a navy codebreaker to help Sean pursue his theories. They end up traveling to coordinates where Sean believes they will find a “mysterious island,” though Hank is skeptical.
Journey 2 was relatively successful at the box office, with a total worldwide gross of $335.3 million against a $79 million production budget. It was less successful among critics, who gave it an average rating of 4.92 out of 10 according to Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s “critical consensus” blurb reads: “Aggressively unambitious, Journey 2 might thrill teen viewers, but most others will find it too intense for young audiences and too cartoonishly dull for adults.”
That hasn’t seemed to stop people from flocking to the movie on Netflix, where it is currently the No. 1 kids’ title, the No. 3 overall movie and the No. 8 overall title on the whole platform. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is streaming now on Netflix.
