"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 script by Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback, is fairly light, leaving the bulk of the film's lean running time dedicated to car chases, shootouts and fist-fights (all within the kid-friendly "PG" range, naturally). Even so, director Andy Fickman, who worked with Johnson on 2007's "The Game Plan," tries to pad things out by giving Jack a love interest in an astrobiologist named Dr. Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino), who is in Vegas to show possible hard proof of extra-terrestrial life to the nuts at the UFO convention. Incidentally, her scenes dealing with the "true believers" is one of the few bad scenes in the movie, which deals in terrible overacting and eye-rolling stereotypes. But other than that, the film isn't bad, just standard issue and underwhelming.
The film also introduces a second threat: an alien assassin sent to kill the kids and help the military of their world prepare an invasion of Earth. Tacking two villains into a movie with such a short running time is counterproductive; both subtract from the effectiveness (even though Burke and his buffoons are cartoonish and teeth-gnashing bad guys, more annoying than threatening). It's obvious that the alien is just the main villain to give Jack someone worthy to fight. Unfortunately, the filmmakers almost literally ripped off the Predator in this case, right down to similar design. The big reveal of the masked killer's face will prompt "Predator" fans to recall Schwarzenegger's classic one-liner (in their heads, so as not to offend the tykes in the theater).
"Witch Mountain" also suffers from a lack of defined tone. Johnson and Gugino treat this as the family comedy/adventure it is, while Hinds and the kids are so super-serious as if this was a heavier thriller (the score by Trevor Rabin seems to agree with the latter group). Also, the script has problems in determining just how powerful/vulnerable the kids are. One minute, they can move objects with their mind and become as strong as a concrete wall to destroy an oncoming SUV; the next, they are taken out by tranquilizer darts and need Jack to save them. The script could use revising; as it is, the plot calls for the regular guy Jack to be useful at certain points, and from a cynical viewpoint, one could see it as the plot making room so Johnson can star.
Johnson as usual comes through an inferior product smelling like a rose, but this time, even he can't lift the film up above mediocre. Johnson is quickly becoming as bankable a movie star as he was in the WWE, and he has a talent for letting his endless reservoir of charisma, action chops and comic timing steal the show in an any given picture (case in point: he made that rancid "Be Cool" tolerable when he was on screen; off-screen, forget it). Here, though, he's content to just do his thing in a more toned down performance and let the special effects take over, which are decent, but unspectacular; par for the course of a Disney feature without "Pirates" in the title.
Johnson is at the position where he is now a big enough star that he is expected to carry a movie on his own, without the gimmick of his famous nickname on the poster, which is a thought he should reconsider. Even if he wants to escape the "wrestler" stigma, his nickname has more marketing potential (and why fight it; at this point fans of his will always know him as The Rock).
But the burden of carrying the load of a film can wait. So long as Johnson works for Disney, he will have a money-maker on his hands. That's what Disney does: make money, even if they have to repackage the same old stuff with derivative results. That's what will happen with "Race to Witch Mountain." It's all glossy surface and nothing of substance; instantly forgettable and wholly unremarkable, if watchable and inoffensive. But it's Disney, and it'll make money.
FINAL GRADE: TWO-AND-A-HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE STARS)
"Race to Witch Mountain"
From Walt Disney Pictures
Starring Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, Carla Gugino, Ceran Hinds, Tom Everett Scott, Chris Marquette, Kim Richards, Ike Isenmann, Billy Brown, Tom Woodruff Jr., Gary Marshall and Cheech Marin
Directed by Andy Fickman
Written by Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback, based on the book "Escape to Witch Mountain," by Alexander Key
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Rated "PG": Violence