Brad Peyton
59 connections found
View:
Connections, in both directions
Nothing is subtle, and Ioan Gruffudd's cowardly tycoon is a copy of Richard Chamberlain's engineer from The Towering Inferno, but Johnson, a human edifice, is more than equal to the preposterous destruction.
Oblivious to both narrative logic and the laws of physics, the cliché-filled “San Andreas” doesn’t nearly have the star power of earlier, better disaster movies it borrows from like “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Earthquake” and “The Towering Inferno” — which featured Paul Newman as the tower’s architect, a role played here by an embarrassed-looking Ioan Gruffudd (as Gugino’s fiancé).
Meanwhile, Mrs The Rock is romancing a slick architect who – like Paul Newman in The Towering Inferno – has just designed the tallest building in San Francisco.
The film in fact would be a paltry thing indeed without its commendably imperturbable star, especially given a shifting landscape that no longer finds the modern-day equivalents of Ava Gardner, Shelley Winters, or Fred Astaire (who was Oscar-nominated for The Towering Inferno, of all things) willing to climb onboard such spectacles as they were once wont to do.
The Mysterious Island (1929)
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
influenced Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Themes
Childhood literary classics that include Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” and Jules Verne’s “The Mysterious Island” inform the story in a sidelong fashion.
Also, writers Brian Gunn, Mark Gunn, and Richard Outten have obviously never, ever read The Mysterious Island, Gulliver's Travels, or Treasure Island, though they clearly did see the 1961 Mysterious Island movie with Ray Harryhausen effects, given the number of references to that movie pepper the film (of which giant bees are merely the most obvious).
Based loosely on Jules Verne’s "The Mysterious Island," 'Journey 2' is thankfully not as spectacularly awful as director Brad Peyton’s last kiddy-oriented sequel, "Cats and Dogs: The Revenge Kitty of Galore."
Director Brad Peyton and writers Brian and Mark Gunn have appropriated "The Mysterious Island" – Jules Verne 's sequel to "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" – for a contemporary sequel to the 2008 film version of Verne's utterly unrelated " Journey to the Center of the Earth ."
The opening voice-over narration, distinctively intoned by Caine, describes the influence of sci-fi pioneer Jules Verne , and the film refers to a remote idyll described in his 1874 novel The Mysterious Island.
Treasure Island (1990)
Directed by Fraser Clarke Heston
influenced Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Plot
To overcome each obstacle, they not only have to be physically in shape, they also have to use their smarts and draw on clues inside of Verne's "The Mysterious Island" as well as Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island."
At least Earthquake -- a clear inspiration for this film, even if its release date of 1974 makes it seem as long ago as the Dead Sea Scrolls -- jumped between characters and showed a real L.A. populated by cowards and heroes, daredevils and madmen, Charlton Heston and Richard Roundtree.
It’s essentially a remake/ripoff of the 1974 disaster movie nadir “Earthquake,” only there’s only a handful of characters, not the usual three or four dozen.
Earthquakes haven't been exploited at the movies as much as one would think (most prominently in 1974's Earthquake, which brought us the Sensurround gimmick), but those with long-memories can cross-reference 1997's Dante's Peak and Volcano, which are more or less the same movie as (each other and) San Andreas, except with geysers of lava.
And as we all know, sound technology has come a long way since the 1974 Charlton Heston “Earthquake” movie introduced audiences to something called SenSurround.
Of course, San Andreas is really about destruction, and the orgy of cracking earth, collapsing dams, tumbling buildings, and rushing tsunamis is all expertly rendered, missing only the theater-shaking gimmick of Sensurround, which shook audiences watching Irwin Allen’s infamous Earthquake (1974).
Even 1974’s Earthquake at least had sensurround and seats that shook.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
Directed by Henry Levin
influenced Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Plot
"Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" is kinda/sorta based on the writings of Jules Verne, in a similar vein as its predecessor, "Journey to the Center of the Earth."
In fact, it is a loose sequel to "Journey to the Center of the Earth," a 2007 epic that was apparently seen by many, remembered by few (trust me, you hadn't given it a second thought since it originally came out and you know it) and is perhaps best known now for being one of the films that sparked the current 3D revival.
Director Brad Peyton and writers Brian and Mark Gunn have appropriated "The Mysterious Island" – Jules Verne 's sequel to "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" – for a contemporary sequel to the 2008 film version of Verne's utterly unrelated " Journey to the Center of the Earth ."
The premise was fresher in 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, which was a cleverer movie all around.
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
influenced San Andreas (2015)
Plot Visuals
Needless to say, this is a disaster film akin to Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow or 2012.
Though directed by Brad Peyton, parts of San Andreas have the distinctively tin-eared vibe of Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow, in which Jake Gyllenhaal nearly drowns in icy waters trying to swim to a pay phone to call his father and say he’s okay.
The level of destruction rivals that of a Roland Emmerich film ( 2012 , The Day After Tomorrow , Independence Day ).
Following Roland Emmerich’s near-back-to-back attempts at over-the-top natural disaster movies 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow, director Brad Peyton’s San Andreas is a surprisingly straightforward and fun, but still inane, ride that stretches the boundaries of scientific accuracy in the interest of supplying non-stop ground-shaking mayhem.
In San Andreas , director Brad Peyton shows us what all those Roland Emmerich movies (from The Day After Tomorrow to 2012 ) were missing: a jacked superhero to growl one-liners at all the CGI falling stuff.
Or at the very least, The Day After Tomorrow in 2004.
But “San Andreas” is never scary, not in its torrents of lowest-bidder computer-generated imagery, not amidst story elements that evoke the ill-fated 1997 Tommy Lee Jones vehicle “Volcano,” and especially not when Caltech seismologist Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti) tells us how scary they are, mostly with junk science and an early, unearned emotional catharsis.
Earthquakes haven't been exploited at the movies as much as one would think (most prominently in 1974's Earthquake, which brought us the Sensurround gimmick), but those with long-memories can cross-reference 1997's Dante's Peak and Volcano, which are more or less the same movie as (each other and) San Andreas, except with geysers of lava.
Every generation gets its disaster epic where parts of California rumble under shifting tectonic plates and the Hollywood sign reads " O LYW OD," whether it's "Earthquake" (1974) or "Volcano" (1997) or the new entry, "San Andreas."
Not since, good Lord, maybe Volcano back in 1997 have I seen a disaster movie so painstakingly eager to be the most prototypical disaster movie it could possibly be.
Gulliver's Travels (1939)
Directed by Dave Fleischer
influenced Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Themes
Childhood literary classics that include Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” and Jules Verne’s “The Mysterious Island” inform the story in a sidelong fashion.
Its elitist strain is reminiscent of the narrative for 2012 (2009) but is about as disaster-epic fluff as San Andreas (2015) and miles away better calibrated than another Butler flick, Geostorm (2017).
Supplied While at times borrowing shamelessly from San Andreas, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, Greenland is also successfully unambitious on its own terms.
Much more in line with 2015 Norwegian disaster-thriller The Wave than your typical Hollywood apocalyptic fare (think 2012 or San Andreas), Greenland believably traces how civil society would come to pieces in the eye of an impending disaster.
As anyone who has suffered through Deep Impact, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, San Andreas and Butler’s own Geostorm knows too well, Hollywood’s last meal of choice is a heaping serving of cheese, gooey and viscous.
As silly as San Andreas was, it didn’t skimp on the disaster movie money shots.
“Greenland” is a lot like “San Andreas” with a comet instead of an earthquake and far more mundane special effects; it’s essentially a soapy family drama set against the backdrop of an apocalyptic catastrophe.
There’s a few scenes that seem to have been lifted (with less finesse) out of “Avatar,” but for the most part, the film sticks to the wonder and awe of the digital world here.
The visual quality of "Journey 2" is such that while Peyton and company filmed on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, the results resemble "H.R. Pufnstuf" or the AMC theater chain's concessions promo, the one where placid teenagers hoisting 188-ounce cups of Coke are transported to a world akin to "Avatar."
With all the incredibly realistic CGI created landscapes and settings we've seen in movies these last couple of years ( "Avatar," "Thor" ), it becomes a challenge to equal or exceed state-of-the-art standards.
Against backgrounds that invoke "Avatar," they fight giant lizards and fly on giant bees, while searching for Captain Nemo's ship.
There are some fantasy films like "Avatar" and the "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" sagas in which enormous sums of money have been dedicated to creating astonishingly detailed worlds that almost feel real.
The breezy and fun Journey to the Center of the Earth helped reintroduce audiences to the latest incarnation of 3D back in the pre- Avatar days of 2008, and its healthy $240 million box office haul has paved the way for this second Jules Verne-inspired family adventure.
Needless to say, this is a disaster film akin to Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow or 2012.
The level of destruction rivals that of a Roland Emmerich film ( 2012 , The Day After Tomorrow , Independence Day ).
Just like John Cusack in 2012, Ray's estranged from his wife — played by Carla Gugino — which means the rupture of California's notorious San Andreas fault can serve a handy-dandy marriage-counseling function.
Following Roland Emmerich’s near-back-to-back attempts at over-the-top natural disaster movies 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow, director Brad Peyton’s San Andreas is a surprisingly straightforward and fun, but still inane, ride that stretches the boundaries of scientific accuracy in the interest of supplying non-stop ground-shaking mayhem.
One doesn’t usually think of Roland Emmerich’s disaster epics as cinematic models to be emulated, but that is precisely what screenwriter Carlton Cuse (working from a story by Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore) seems to have done with the mega-earthquake thriller San Andreas, whose disaster spectacle and sense of moral reckoning is hung on exactly the same narrative backbone as Emmerich’s world-shattering 2012 (2009).
And Roland Emmerich's unfairly maligned 2012 understood that its story was a tragedy.
Bordering styles reminiscent of Pacific Rim thanks to VFX supervisor, Lindy De Quattro's past work on the Guillermo del Toro film and Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, Atlas gives its all with these gigantic mech suits that feel grand and spectacular in its creation.
Jurassic Park (1993)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Music Visuals Plot
Far less charming is the reliance on goo and poo jokes, a slightly pervy fascination with Hudgens crawling around in short-shorts and a score that seems less like an homage to John Williams’ “Jurassic Park” work than a wicked parody that had the jokes removed.
It’s why Journey 2 can steal all its action sequences from far superior movies -- Jurassic Park , Return of the Jedi -- and its score from The Lord of the Rings .
The aforementioned lizard attack is almost as intense as the T-Rex attack in the original "Jurassic Park."
Directed by Brad Peyton ("Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore") with an eye toward replicating "Jurassic Park" and Indiana Jones, it's unapologetically derivative and feels hastily assembled.
It's The Goonies meets Jurassic Park, but with no palpable sense of danger or tangible baddie it comes across a tad Spielberg-lite.
In fact, "San Andreas" wants to be "The Poseidon Adventure," but it doesn't have Gene Hackman as a tough-talking minister and Shelley Winters as a champion swimmer gone to seed.
The most fertile wave of celluloid disaster porn came in the 1970s, when maestros of mayhem like producer Irwin Allen churned out star-studded cataclysms like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno .
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Visuals
But the action here consists exclusively of barely reheated sequences from better films, and the dialogue's allusions to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" serve only to remind us what we're missing and to remind us indirectly that, where that film turned little-known character actors into near-icons, this one takes the reliably great Luis Guzman and forces him to cower and whine as if he were auditioning for the "Three Stooges" remake.
Along the way, we are treated to sights that we have seen before (a cavern collapse right out of the opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and a forest chase that is a direct lift of the one admittedly cool part of "Return of the Jedi"), sights that have been seen too often in the commercials (such as Hank popping his pecs to show Sean how to attract Kailani, overlooking the fact that her pecs are far more impressive and well-defined than his) and sights that few rational people would have ever dreamed that they would one day bear witness too (such as Luis Guzman getting covered with giant bird poop or The Rock singing "What a Wonderful World" with special novelty lyrics.
Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
Directed by Ken Annakin
influenced Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Plot
The story is an agreeable, scattershot affair combining notions from several of Verne's fantasy adventures with a "Swiss Family Robinson" formula of puppy love and family bonding.
The level of destruction rivals that of a Roland Emmerich film ( 2012 , The Day After Tomorrow , Independence Day ).
The good ones give you enough to look at that you can make that deal for a couple hours at a time; Independence Day, for instance, has the right balance of cheese and pathos that keeps it entertaining rather than unsettling.
If you don’t think you’ve seen it, you have, because just in recent years it’s been in Twister, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Volcano, War of the Worlds, Independence Day and, now, San Andreas.
Earthquakes haven't been exploited at the movies as much as one would think (most prominently in 1974's Earthquake, which brought us the Sensurround gimmick), but those with long-memories can cross-reference 1997's Dante's Peak and Volcano, which are more or less the same movie as (each other and) San Andreas, except with geysers of lava.
Following in the footsteps of Earthquake and Dante's Peak, this adrenaline-assisted blockbuster employs state-of-the-art digital artistry and 3D to plonk us amid the collapsing buildings of what boffin Paul Giamatti notes is "the largest magnitude quake in recorded history".
The Goonies (1985)
Directed by Richard Donner
influenced Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Plot
It's not an offensively bad way to spend an hour and a half, and director Brad Peyton is exceedingly aware that he's not making an awards contender, but the narrative is nonetheless a slapdash affair as it becomes a rehash of any number of superior films, from 1985's "The Goonies," to 1989's "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," to 2005's " King Kong ."
It's The Goonies meets Jurassic Park, but with no palpable sense of danger or tangible baddie it comes across a tad Spielberg-lite.
And while Bogart's Rick Blaine in Casablanca opined that "it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world," in the disaster genre, the problems of the little people are paramount.
It was Rick from Casablanca who famously said, "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."