Race to Witch
Mountain
(2009)
I may have seen
the original Escape to Witch Mountain
(1975); I can’t recall. There’s certainly no reason for Disney to avoid
plundering their frequently shonkily-made ‘70s and ‘80s live-action kids’
movies. Often they had a decent central idea but were let down by cheap and
cheerful execution. Comedy director Andy Fickman doesn’t seem to have much idea
of how to approach this, unfortunately, so settles for a rather banal Close Encounters-meets-X-Files.
Neither does the
screenplay have much new to offer; alien kids land, government pursues them,
good humans help them escape. Throw a bad alien into the brew to keep the pace
up. But there aren’t any twist or turns, and you can feel the director’s enthusiasm
for his pedestrian reboot petering out as it progresses. Perhaps Damon Lindelof
should have punched-up the story, or at least added some unnecessarily cosmic
confusion and existential angst. I don’t buy the “It’s a kids’ movie, it doesn’t
have to try” line, either. One of the marks of the troubled Disney period from
the mid-‘70s to mid-‘80s was how unsure of themselves they became, and thus how
interesting (if ultimately unsuccessful) the results were (look at the likes of
The Watcher in the Woods, Something Wicked This Way Comes or The Black Hole).
As it is, Fickman
puts together an appealing cast and leaves them struggling. Dwayne Johnson plays
the jaded cabby who helps the alien children; he rises to the challenge
admirably, his easy charisma more evident when he’s not smashing things or
people to bits. Carla Gugino has a nothing part, but she’s a pro and does her
best with it. Ciáran Hinds is a disappointment, however, unable to lift
his one-note villain from the barking commands level. As for the kids,
AnnaSophia Robb displays the same surplus of talent that was evident a couple
of years earlier in Bridge to Terebithia.
It’s little surprise she’s such a rising star. Alexander Ludwig went onto
appear in The Hunger Games; I can’t
recall him so maybe he got horribly killed by another teenager.
Underlining
Fickman’s comfort zone of comedy and self-referentiality, the best sequences
are the opening credits trail through the history of UFO sightings and the
scenes at a UFO conference in Vegas. In-jokes abound, and Whitley Strieber
cameos. There’s an attempt to blur the lines of good and bad by introducing two
different alien agendas, but the pervasive air is of an uninspired remake
arriving a good 10 years too late.
**1/2
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