“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 3D” is the sequel to the 2008 film “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” The film is based on the classic Jules Verne novel “The Mysterious Island,” even though Verne never intended it as a sequel.

The film stars Josh Hutcherson as Sean Anderson, a young man searching for his long lost grandfather; Dwayne Johnson as his step-father, and Vanessa Hudgens as their tour guide and Sean’s eventual love interest, Kailani.

The film begins with Sean attempting to receive a transmission at a local satellite research facility from, who he believes, to be his grandfather. After being caught by the police trying to escape the facility, Sean is escorted home by his step-father Hank, who while seizing a bonding moment accidentally discovers the coordinates to the fabled lost island written about in “Treasure Island,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” and “Mysterious Island.”

Hank decides to take the journey with Sean to Palau, where they meet Kailani and her father who take them via helicopter to the lost island. As you’d expect, the helicopter is caught in a freak storm and they crash land on the island. They do eventually meet up with Sean’s grandfather, but along the way encounter a series many giant animals that inhabit the mythical island.

The film continues in a fashion similar to “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” complete with bow-tied outcome. There’s nothing out of the box with this formula story.

The picture quality of this release is exquisite. The film arrives to your HDTV via a 1080p, AVC-encoded, 1.85:1 presentation. The colors are amazing and pop off the screen. There are a lot of green-blue colors in the film that really stand out. There aren’t many dark moments considering the duration of the film, however the areas where there are shadows and darkness, the black is deep and inky with nearly no particles in site. Warner Brothers generally does a great job with their releases, however I was actually quite surprised with this release.

The audio quality of this film is presented in an excellent DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Again, I was completely surprised with how Warner Brothers handled this area of the film. The bass boomed in the appropriate areas, the dialogue was extremely crisp and clear, and the ambient sounds were engulfing. I generally don’t get impressed with audio quality, but this release is quite amazing.

This release lacks pretty bad in the supplemental features area. There are so many things a film with this budget could have put in but didn’t. Check out what they did include below:

• Are You Strong Enough to Survive Mysterious Island?
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel

Bottom line with this release is that is has excellent technical specifications, but lacks pretty bad in the supplemental features area. If you’re a fan of the film, or if it’s even in a genre that you’re interested in, I’d certainly recommend you make this purchase. If you’re uncertain about the film, I’d wait for a price drop. I wouldn’t discount it all together unless it’s a film that you absolutely cannot watch. I went into it thinking nearly nothing good about it and my mind was changed based on how great the film looked and sounded.