by Donald Lind

Created on: March 18, 2009

"An Uneventful Trip"

These days, Disney's philosophy toward marketing their family-oriented films seems to be: put a shiny package around it, and we can sell it.

One look at the various remastered, reissues of classic animated titles over the years ("Pinocchio," "Lion King" and all that ilk) along with their inferior cash-ins, sorry, sequels of said titles that come out in a big, bright package, then go away into their ginormous vault for a few years only to come out in an all-new, candy-coated wrapping later on and be sold as all new, to know that the House of Mouse is no stranger to repackaging old favorites in order to score some dough.

Also look at the outright remakes of a few oldies of theirs: "Shaggy Dog"; "Flubber." Tweak the same basic concept to modernize it a bit, market certain set pieces to the kids and get a fairly bankable star and more money in the bank for Disney. Surprisingly, it has taken the studio more than 30 years to update their 1975 film "Escape from Witch Mountain" (not counting of course, that film's 1978 sequel and a 1995 made-for-TV version). And so, Disney's recycling plan has churned out "Race to Witch Mountain," which is more of a stand-alone update than a total remake of the original. As expected, this new "Mountain" is glossy and bright, but there is nothing under the surface.

It is a testament to how non-descript "Witch Mountain" is when even Dwayne Johnson can't liven things up.

The Artist Formerly Known as the Rock stars as Jack Bruno, a former driver for a Las Vegas mob boss, who is attempting to eek out an honest living as a cab driver after getting out of prison. One day, he meets two mysterious kids who wish him to take them to an unusual location, apparently out in the middle of nowhere in the desert.

Their names are Sara (AnnaSophia Robb, "Bridge to Terabithia") and Seth (Alexander Ludwig, "The Seeker"), and as Jack quickly finds out, they are not what they seem. They are actually aliens from another planet on a desperate mission to save their world-and our own in doing so-from annihilation. They were on the verge of completing their mission (research into the livability of Earth) when their ship crash-landed. Now, Jack must help the kids evade capture by sinister government operative Henry Burke (Ceran Hinds) and his band of thugs, who wish to capture them for their own special brand of "research." To complete their mission, Sara and Seth must retrieve their ship, held at the secret government facility inside of Witch Mountain.

The

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