Race to Witch Mountain (2009) Movie Review

Ever since “Star Wars” tried to reboot the franchise back in 1999, it seems every studio has embarked on a frantic sprint to update any viable properties that may be lanquishing in their film vaults. Forget developing any new ideas. Let’s drag a dusty old one out, brush off the cobwebs and make it all shiny and new. In the cases of the “Star Trek” and “Batman” films, it work spectacularly well due to the amazing talent of the creative team. “Witch Mountain” is bereft of anything positive behing the camera, and consequently the resulting production has all the artistic flair and entertainment quality of a Wal Mart restroom.

The 21st Century version of “Escape to Witch Mountain”, now rechristened “Race to Witch Mountain”, focuses on cabdriver Jack Bruno. Choosing honest work over the temptations of criminal jobs, his life gets even more complicated when a pair of young kids materialize in the backseat of his cab with fistfulls of cash and wanting to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Jack’s day doesn’t get any easier: the kids are revealed to be aliens trying to prevent the invasion of Earth, and are pursued by the military and a robotic bounty hunter. With the help of a sexy scientist and a UFO conspiracy author, a cabdriver must overcome incredible odds to prevent the subjugation of humanity.

It’s a lot easier to list what’s right with this film than what went disasterously wrong. Carla Gugino is radiant as Dr. Alex Friedman, the scientist who helps Jack and the aliens. Even more admirable is her forsight–even while she’s listed in the credits she limits her screentime mainly to the final third of the movie. Veteran special effects artist Tom Woodruff JR appears as the relentless alien bounty hunter, and his experience playing creatures on “The X Files” and “Alien vs. Predator” enables him to make a slightly comical creation look lethal and threatening. Tom Everett-Scott also manages to escape unscathed in his role as an FBI agent, by being wise enough to mainly keep a low profile onscreen and doing little to draw attention to himself. In productions such as this, discretion is the better part of valor.

Although billed as a family film, the main focus of the film isn’t to entertain. It’s to force feed audiences the concept that Dwayne Johnson is no longer WWF”s “The Rock”–he’s now been sanitized for your protection and fit for small children to watch. Vin Diesel made a similiar career move a few years back, and it worked out fairly well for him. But Dwayne’s no Vin, and his transformation from tough guy to a softhearted guardian of children seems forced and unconvincing. Frequently, he seems more concerned about how the audience perceives him than rescuing the vulnerable aliens. Old habits appear to die hard with Dwayne; he spends more time than necessary in a Disney film punching people in the face, whether they pose any real threat to him or not.

As the stranded extraterrestrials, AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig do a fair job in displaying their character’s earnestness and vulnerability. But they overplay their “fish out of water” situation, and mostly they come off as vacant. When your two supporting leads appear overmedicated, they look like they’re in need of an intervention instead of being sent back to their home planet. Director Andy Fickman tries his best with the script he’s given, guiding the film to a swift pace and the occasional tense moment. He utterly fails to transform “The Rock” into appearing anything more than a neutered goon, but to be fair the man can;t work miracles. All he’s got to do is direct a movie, nobody’s expecting him to part the Red Sea.

The aforementioned script is credited to Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback, who previous wrote “Live Free or Die Hard”, “Bedtime Stories”, and “Deception”. After individually penning 3 good films, “Witch Mountain” should have been fantastic; whatever the hell was going on during the writing sessions is anyone’s guess. But their joint effort is a cut and paste script of scifi cliches and tired concepts. Watching this mess, you get the idea the dynamic duo simply blew off their scripting duties to move on to greener pastures.

People accuse a filmmaker of raping their childhood whenever he announces he’s remaking a classic film. This isn’t the case, this is a cinematic crime too horrific and perverted to be listed in a forensics textbook. While “Race to Witch Mountain” has a few bright spots, finding them isn’t worth the 98 minutes required to sit through the movie.

Andy Fickman (director) / Mark Bomback, Matt Lopez (screenplay), Alexander Key (book “Escape to Witch Mountain”)
CAST: Dwayne Johnson … Jack Bruno
AnnaSophia Robb … Sara
Alexander Ludwig … Seth
Carla Gugino … Dr. Alex Friedman
Ciarán Hinds … Henry Burke
Tom Everett Scott … Matheson