The Rundown (2003)

It comes fast, a split-second cameo: Arnold Schwarzenegger walks out of a bar and yells, “Have fun!,” as Dwayne Johnson -– billed as “The Rock” for his wrestling -– struts into a showdown that will have him clobbering most of a football team. Off the bat, director Peter Berg in his second film is planting flags: Johnson is the new Action King and “The Rundown” is a goofy, bone-cruncher flick from 1986. And it is exactly that. Every beat, stunt, gag, and boom is wired to the days of Reagan. Irritation? Yes. Likely the point? Fact. Plot: Johnson is Beck, a bounty hunter sent to the Amazon to retrieve the son (Sean William Scott) of his loan shark boss. In the jungle, his target easily found, Beck gets sucked into a third-world slave camp (free market capitalism!) drama run by an evil baron (Christopher Walken). Skulls crack, you know the rest. Johnson’s charisma is strong as Berg dreams up cackling, chortling myriad ways to put his hero through the ringer. Scott’s Wile E. Coyote irritates and needles Beck in the film’s best unsaid gag: This is a bromance take on “Romancing the Stone,” one of those great ’80s films. B

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)

Warner Bros. made “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” for 3D big screens in 2012, but watching the pop-art colors, goofy-grin special effects, and family-on-an-adventure story, I thought of the Disney movies from 30 years back, fantasies that put children center stage. “Journey” is proudly rah-rah family fun, hokey with “I love you, dad” montages that rocket past cringingly cloy, but it is miles better than the first “Journey” film, “Center of the Earth.” That piffle drowned in bad CGI, but here we get tiny elephants, giant bees, raging waters, and falling rocks that ring more true. (Sort of.) Speaking of Rocks, Dwayne Johnson replaces Brandon Fraser as the adult who joins our teen hero (Josh Hutcherson) on an adventure that again focuses on Verne and a missing relative (Michael Caine as one cool grandpa). Hutcherson is too old to be short-bus style yelling “Grandpa!,” but Johnson has a ball singing and playing a ukulele. Adults won’t mind when the cast breaks the fourth wall and smirk. B-