How to Ruin Jules Verne in 12 MIntues

 Jules Verne wrote stories about men having science-fiction adventures and buddy-bonding, with barely a woman mentioned:  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Mysterious Island, From the Earth to the Moon, Five Weeks in a Balloon.  Movie adaptations almost invariably throw in some girls for the guys to fall in love with. Still, I have high hopes for Journey to the Mysterious Island 2, or Journey 2 the Mysterious Island.   It stars a teenager (Josh Hutcherson) teaming up with his stepfather (Dwayne Johnson) to find his grandfather, so testosterone all the way down, and there's no hint of heterosexual romance in the trailer.

Scene 1: Jules Verne is mentioned in voice-over in the very first shot: we are told that his books are not science fiction.  Everything actually happened.  

A person on a motorcycle being chased by the police.  They have humorous misadventures, and end up crashing into a swimming pool.  Surprise -- it's Josh Hutcherson! 

Police cars, ambulances, dogss. Josh broke into a satellite facility, but because his stepfather is The Rock, the police aren't pressing charges (they don't have the authority to do that). 

Scene 2: Back home, Josh, The Rock, and Mom argue.  "You're not my real Dad," and so on.  Josh takes his shirt off for gratuitous beefcake.  Then he rushes to his room, takes out a secret message, and tries to decipher it.

The Rock comes in.  Josh explains that the message came from the radio three nights ago.  But his radio wasn't strong enough to get the whole message, ergo the satellite facility.

They decipher references to Treasure Island, The Mysterious Island, and Gulliver's Travels.  Each time, Josh pulls out an ancient volume -- he's never heard of paperbacks?  Turns out that all three books depict the same island, which is real, located just east of Palau in the South Pacific.  So we're going to meet pirates and Lilliputians?

And by the way, Josh's Grandpa is trapped there.

Scene 3:   The Rock and Mom discuss the situation.  Turns out Grandpa was a wide-eyed schemer who was never "there for her."   They decide to let Josh go to Palau anyway, so the two can have some father-son bonding time,

Scene 4: The docks in Palau.  Josh makes a fool of himself by talking to the natives in broken English.  The Rock and Josh try to charter a boat, but no one is willing to take them to the coordinates: "it's a graveyard!"  Finally the fast-talking Gabito offers to take them in his run down helicopter.  

"You must meet my daughter," he says. This can't be good.

Uh-oh.  It's the Girl of Josh's Dreams.  Slow-motion walk, hair blowing in the wind, Josh dissolving into a puddle of hormones.  

I'm out.