RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN

Back in the 1970s, in the hey-day of Disney’s live-action-for-kids adventure films, Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann co-starred in two Witch Mountain movies which, over the years, have become much-loved classics. The duo appear briefly (as a waitress and a sherriff, respectively) in this updated amalgam of those earlier films, but the resulting project lacks some of the charm of the originals.

AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig co-star as, respectively, Sara and Seth, a pair of extraterrestrial teens on a mission to prevent military hotheads from their home planet from destroying Earth. The only problem is, in order to thwart their nefarious kinfolk, Sara and Seth have to recover a high-tech toy and reclaim their spacecraft... which is being held in a secret government bunker inside the titular mountain by a bunch of human military hotheads led by a scenery-chewing Ciaràn Hinds.

The teenage twosome enlist the aid of reluctant Las Vegas cab driver Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson), who’s got his own set of problems courtesy of a crime boss eager to collect some overdue payments but who nonetheless finds himself embroiled in the intergalactic escapade. Along the way, they pick up Carla Gugino as a true-believing scientist conveniently in town giving a lecture at a sci-fi convention, and the race-turned-chase is on.

Fairly thin on plot and heavy on running (fitting, given its title), Race... spends much of its time replaying variations on the same scene: Sara and Seth in peril because some villain (either Hinds’ scowling G-man or a decidedly Terminator-esque killing machine from the kids’ home planet) is in hot pursuit. In a shack, in a secret cavern, on a highway, in a hotel, in a military facility... and so on.

Robb and Ludwig are fine, but neither is especially compelling or endearing as far as Disney leads go. Their robotic line-delivery – which is meant to remind us that the teens are aliens and not humans, and that they’ve therefore not learned how to speak in anything other than an irritating monotone – got old pretty quickly, and felt unnecessary. Much more engaging is Johnson, who’s got the perfect blend of action-star muscle and family-friendly sweetness. When he finally gets the perfect vehicle (sadly, this film isn’t it), his big-screen career will explode. But I digress...

I had to keep reminding myself that I’m not the target demographic for this kind of movie, and chances are kids under 12 will likely get a kick out of its simple storytelling and cartoon-ish characters. It’s a decent movie, but not great. For older audiences, though, nostalgia for the originals will likely take the enjoyment of this comparatively less-interesting offering down a couple of notches.

Disney continues with their gentle-yet-firm suggestion to upgrade to Blu-Ray with their release of the three-disc version of Race to Witch Mountain: you get a Blu-Ray disc, a DVD, and a digital copy of the film. So, yes, basically lots of copies of the same thing. There are bloopers and deleted scenes, and otherwise ads with Dylan & Cole Sprouse telling you how great Blu-Ray is, so upgrade! Well, um, OK. For fans of the old films, the Blu-Ray disc has a piece where director Andy Fickman points out all the sneaky references to the original classic 70s films.