Review

Review Date: 15-March-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

Kudos for Race to Witch Mountain go to screenwriters Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback, who were saddled with several formulaic obligations and delivered an enjoyable movie. Working from the template of a Disney hit from the 1970s, they gave Dwayne Johnson another vehicle for his fluffy he-man persona, packed in enough action to keep adults awake, and satisfied both Hollywood's dictum about happy endings and Disney's mandate for innocence and animals. Race to Witch Mountain may be unoriginal, but it is admirably sure-footed.

"Race" is the appropriate word for a movie in which the camera and characters almost never stop moving. This is frazzling at times but helps to cover the fact that Johnson, while photogenic, is not a natural actor. He plays Jack Bruno, a decent guy who has made mistakes and is trying to go straight as a Vegas cab driver. Offsetting his physical weight is the gravitas of Ciarán Hinds as a federal agent tracking the beings who crashed a spaceship in the desert. The two men become enemies after Jack picks up the extraterrestrials, who look like normal Earthling teens (well, more gorgeous than normal), and finds himself assuming the role of protector. This impulse is understandable since Alexander Ludwig and AnnaSophia Robb are charming as the alien siblings, and they are hunted by an assassin from their own world in addition to the feds. Not to mention that the fate of our own planet rests on them reaching their ship in safety.

As the movie unspools car chases and explosions, it pays homage to its roots by including the stars of the original Escape to Witch Mountain and swapping Jack's taxi for a beat-up RV. Humor and romance result when Carla Gugino appears as a beleaguered scientist whom Jack enlists at a UFO convention populated by geeks who fetishize alien probing and believe that no gathering is complete without Stormtrooper costumes. By the time Jack and his squeeze infiltrate a secret government lab under mysterious Witch Mountain, the existence of telekinetic teenaged space heroes is the most plausible of the picture's plot points. Yet with energetic predictability and a fair amount of heart, it casts an agreeable spell.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.