The Rock now is a cab driver and finds two of his passengers are aliens. He agrees to drive them to their destination, but finds himself immersed in their pursuit from an evil alien and government officials. He also finds himself responsible for having to keep aliens from invading Earth.
Now Jack and the kids are on the run and enlist Dr. Friedman (Carla Gugino), a disgraced scientist and UFO enthusiast, who Jack picked up in his cab the day before he got pulled into the children’s peril. The group has to make it to the kid’s spaceship on Witch Mountain if they’re going to save themselves and prevent an alien invasion of Earth.
With every studio dusting off their previous films for remake status it shouldn’t surprise us that the House of Mouse is doing the same. The 1975 film Escape to Witch Mountain was based on the 1968 novel by Alexander Key.
The new film certainly has some references back to the Disney originals. Look for original stars Iake Eissinmann and Kim Richards in the diner scene, she’s the waitress and he’s the sheriff. It’s a nice bit of nostalgia and you marvel at how they’ve changed yet at how they’ve stayed the same.
Now it’s been years since I’ve watched the original films but I do recall that there was more character stuff with the kids than this redo offers. We’re introduced to the character of Jack Bruno to begin with and it seems like Johnson’s film with the alien kids just thrown into it (look how big Dwayne’s picture is on the cover compared to the kids).
The original introduced us to the kids so that the audience, who consisted of kids about their same age, could identify with them. Since they’re seen as secondary characters to Jack Bruno we’re not really given much character definition from the kids and in my opinion the film suffers for it.
The film definitely ups the action quotient of the first one and takes the term “race” in the title seriously as there are several action car chases. It does have some fun for the adults in the cameos of the original kids and all the references to spot when the plot takes our heroes to a Las Vegas sci-fi/alien convention (look for Tron, the late magician Danny Gans, and Whitney Schreiber to name a few).
You may race to Witch Mountain, but when you get there you’ll find that it’s a bit hollow (it’s only a model). The originals may be dated, but I felt they had more heart than this slam-bang remake.
Race to Witch Mountain is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.39:1). High definition special features include the 8 minute “Backstage Disney” about the connections of this big screen reboot to the older films.
Standard definition special features include 23 minutes of deleted scenes and 4 minutes of bloopers. Disc two is a DVD copy of the film and the third disc is a digital copy for your PC or portable device. For a three disc set the special features feel very light.
Race to Witch Mountain is a bit loud, action-packed, and features the Rock. If that’s your cuppa, then you’ll enjoy it. If you have fond memories of the original then you’ll compare the redo unflatteringly to it.
I still had a good time (the sci-fi cameos and convention had me giggling), but it was definitely time to pop the corn and shift the brain into neutral.
Race to Witch Mountain [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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