RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN (2009)

RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN (2009)

Tagline: The Race Is On

(Adventure, Action, Sci-Fi) [PG]

YOU THINK? You just can't just drop the "we're aliens" bomb, just like that on somebody. Now, I know I've seen some pretty weird things today, but you can't expect me to believe that...

Oh man, this one I admit, I just flat out could have cared less about when it came out and didn’t even bother trying to see it. Now, it’s 11 years later when I am writing this review and I am slowly realizing that not even giving some movies a chance has caused me to miss out on some hidden gems. Was this movie a waste of my time?

In this one, a cab driver named Jack Bruno, (played by Dwayne Johnson best known for being in a million movies) is massively overpaid for cab fare but is also hijacked into taking 2 alien kids (played by Alexander Ludwig, from the show “Vikings”, and  AnnaSophia Robb, probably best known for SOUL SURFER) to a certain location. He is all about it but is also an ex-con who has some enemies and people that want him to go back to a life a crime, so now he’s got to deal with. On top of that a secretive government alien research team after him and these 2 alien kids. The reason they know about the kids is because they have discovered an alien spacecraft that crashed near Las Vegas and they know 2 aliens escaped. Even worse than that, the two alien kids are being chased by a freakin hunter from outer space whose mission is to kill them. They also get some help from Dr. Alex Friedman (played by Carla Gugino best known for SUCKER PUNCH), who just happens to be at a nearby UFO convention. So how about all them apples… 

In watching this movie, the action is good, there a few cool surprises, and everything moves along at a pretty good pace. The effects are also very good so I didn’t have any issues there. What I do feel was wrong with this movie was the choice of the two alien kids. I don’t dislike AnnaSophia Robb, but this one wasn’t her best. Alexander Ludwig just looked way out of his depth and plays the character far too dry for me to really like him at all. In fact, both these kid aliens. I really don’t care if they get caught. I do care if they save the world, but after that, I really don’t need to see them again. Dr. Alex Friedman and Jack Bruno however are interesting enough characters for me to actually really need the very final scene in this movie for closure. If they had skipped that, this movie would have been a huge miss for me. That is how much I liked those two. They also play well off each other as actors. This isn’t that shocking both were in FASTER and SAN ANDREAS together. 

Tidbits – The sound team put a layer of sound in the opening sequence the uses Morse code. It says “Turn Off Your Cell Phones”. There are also some fan theories on how this movie connects to ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN and RETURN FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN, both made in the ’70s, but this film can be viewed as a stand-alone. This movie also has a cab scene where Jack is talking to Sarah (the female kid alien), which has become the template for countless memes. 

I give RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN a 4 out of 7. I don’t feel the need to watch it again anytime soon, but if someone wanted to, I wouldn’t turn the option down. For kids, I’d say this one is pretty solid.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WALT DISNEY PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.