Race to Witch Mountain

By Clint Morris

Crowbar open the loamy casket of the late Eddie Albert and you’d probably expect to see a spinning skeleton wrestling on top a mesh base. After all, one of his classics, in this case the charming 1975 family adventure flick “Escape to Witch Mountain”, has been remade.

Or has it? The original film was actually based on a book by Alexander Key. So in some respects, director Andy Fickman’s not so much remaking John Hough’s film as he is reinterpreting Key’s novel (Just as did in 1995 when he shot a little-seen remake for). But Albert’s not so much resting peacefully because of that, he’d be just glad to hear that the house of Mouse didn’t stuff it up. Yes, the new film may lack some of the charm (and of course lacks the great Albert – who also reprised his role as the film’s hero in two sequels; he was also set to headline a TV series based on the film but that never eventuated) of the Robert Malcolm Young-penned original, but what “Race to Witch Mountain” lacks in warm and fuzzy it more than makes up for in action, adventure, special effects and vivacious performances.

In the original film, two orphans, Tony and Tia Malone, both psychic, escape the clutches of an evil uncle (Rya Milland) who plan to exploit their newly-discovered powers. While they escaping, they meet a friendly RV-driving camper (Albert) and begin to unravel the mystery of their origin. While the townsfolk are convinced all three are witches, someone with even greater powers takes over and leads the children to a magical rock.

Seemingly writer Mark Bomback, who co-wrote the screenplay with Matt Lopez, hasn’t even looked at the original film – but merely read the synopsis on the back-cover of the DVD sleeve because the only similarity between his “Race to Witch Mountain” and “Escape” is that, well, it’s about two kids with powers, an RV plays a role, and there’s a giant Rock.

Make that two. Rocks.

Wrestling icon Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, still playing in the kiddies pool (where he’s been since putting cheeks on seats with Disney hit “The Game Plan”) but still making enough of a racket to draw attention, fills the void of the late Albert in the new film. Instead of an RV, he drives a cab. A Vegas cab. He’s been in jail. Has a bad guy called ‘The Wolf’ keen to lure him back into his shady operation. And listens to Miley Cyrus on the radio (Yeah, that didn’t sit well with me either. Really? Miley? C’Mon!).

As Jack Bruno (Johnson) plays pick-up and drop-off on the strip, the Men in Black get wind of some sort of extraterrestrial landing in the desert nearby. Led by the all-business agent Henry Burke (Ciaran Hinds, TVs ‘’Rome’’), the authorities discover the alien visitors have taken human form – more precisely, teenage form. And guess who just hopped into Jack’s cab?

You can probably guess the rest yourself – Jack tries to help the visitors (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) escape from both the trigger-happy black-car bad guys and some sort of Predator (and when I say ‘Predator’, I mean Stan Winston’s Predator; wonder if kids will notice?) that seems to be on a mission to stop the duo from reuniting with their flying saucer buried deep inside Witch Mountain (a rock about 50 miles outside of Nevada). There’s explosions, there are cars flipping, there’s the odd “Star Wars” joke, there’s the kindly woman (Carla Gugino as a low-rent scientist) who offers to help, and there’s Garry Marshall… playing, well, Garry Marshall (can he play anything else?). Fickman (“The Game Plan”, “She’s the Man”) actually fits quite a bit into the film’s relatively short running time. It moves along nicely. An admirable achievement.

There’s missed opportunities here (if this and that had been explained it would’ve worked better…) and quite frankly, the premise of the original was a tad more engaging (largely because Tony and Tia didn’t quite know what they were, and were they were from), but as far as remakes go (if it is considered one?), this is a good one. And it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone – after all, Disney seem to have a good handle on what makes a good redo. They worked wonders with the recent remakes of “Freaky Friday” and “The Parent Trap” (both starring a sober Lindsay Lohan), and even managed to breathe new life into the “Shaggy Dog” movie series. The studio seems to respect the audience– and you can’t say that for every shingle.

While every other studio in town makes remakes because a) their idea well is dry and b) they can cash in on a name; less risk, Walt’s gang only seem to be remaking films that call for it – like the vintage family films of the 70s that were produced before the evolution of visual and special effects and could’ve benefited from such. And though they don’t always succeed, Disney seem determined to inject the same level of righteousness, charisma and magic into each second helping as they did first time ‘round, so the tykes of today can experience these films as we did back in the LBJ-era. And this comes pretty close to that original experience.

One for the family, “Race to Witch Mountain” is non-stop adventure that’ll appeal to both old and new fans of the magical franchise.