‘Race to Witch Mountain’ (2009) Movie Review
In “Race to Wtch Mountain” Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson) is an ex convict turned legal taxi cab driver who goes on the adventure of his life when aliens, Sara (AnnaSophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig) sneak into his cab after their space ship crashes on Earth. They give him a big wad of cash and tell him to just head in one general direction with what appears to lead to no particular destination. Once they tell him to stop driving, the location they end up at is an old abandoned house out in the middle of the desert. After they go in, Jack decides to follow them when he hears a loud noise. Once inside the house, he comes to find out that it’s much more than that.
Sara and Seth start to unlock secret doors in the house that lead them to a secret underground world where they need to get something very important for the survival of their planet. Unfortunately they are being followed by a Destroyer agent from their planet which is sent to destroy them, and stop their mission.If they do not complete their mission the people of their planet will want to come and take over Earth. So in order for Sara and Seth to complete their mission, they must avoid and then eventually kill the destroyer agent hunting them,the secret government agency that wants to capture and dissect them,and retrieve their spaceship so they can return home.
After much hassling, Frank decides that he wants to help the kids, and he enlists the help of Dr. Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino) who is an expert on alien phenomena. She is able to find the location of their spaceship which is of course located in “Witch Mountain”. Now, it becomes a race to that location. After overcoming being caught by the government agency, and almost being killed by the alien destroyer, they are able to finally find their spaceship with the help of Frank Bruno and Dr. Alex Friedman. They narrowly escape the clutches of the government agency, and kill the detroyer while in the air. Sara and Seth thank Frank and Alex for their help,and change their belief that all humans wouldn’t understand them. Then fly home to save their planet from distinction.
My Take : I liked it. I thought it was very entertaining,and had a great and funny build up. The on air chemistry between Dwayne Johnson,and the kids was awesome. The story and plot was excellent, and I liked how they depicted what an alien would really be like. They were depicted as being in human form,but just had powers far more advanced than ours because they’ve learned to use their full brain capacity which I think would be much more realistic than the typical little green men styreotype. This movie was very fun to watch and good for the whole family.
Grade : B +
Movie : Race to Witch Mountain
Release Date : March 13,2009
Studio : Walt Disney Pictures
Cast : Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Carla Gugino, Ciaran Hinds, Alexander Ludwig, Tom Everett Scott, Christopher Marquette, Cheech Marin, Garry Marshall
I haven’t seen this movie yet, but I’ve always been curious about it. Now that I’ve read the review, I really would like to see it. I’m not sure that I can picture Dwayne Johnson as a taxi cab driver, though!