Guillelmina
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Kimball
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Yazmin
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
Johan Dondokambey
The story is just plain lame. This kind of adventure plot where the adult character protects younger characters, let them be aliens, foreigners or other kind of situations, and go through all kinds of things where the movie eventually ends happily with the ones being protected get to safety, is really a plot too often done in the more mature action movies, particularly those of secret agent movies. It even comes complete with the side plot of having government agencies chase after them beside the actual bad guys. Sadly, besides having Dwayne Johnson, this movie doesn't really bring any new stuff to the table. On the adventure side, particularly the alien movie side, which is in itself has become kind of a culture; this movie only repeats all the recipe of previous alien and kid movie. The acting overall is just a standard work, particularly so because this movie has Dwayne Johnson in it. His performance here seems to lose focus on combining his action movie roles and his family movie roles. Carla Gugino also doesn't really make this movie anything more special.
SnoopyStyle
Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson) is a Las Vegas cabbie who finds two strange siblings (AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig) one morning in his car out of nowhere. They are hounded by evil government agents almost immediately. After many alien and government attacks, the trio escapes and enlists the help of UFO expert Dr. Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino).It's a Michael Bay wannabe. It's too dark for a kids movie. There's too much violence. It's edited like 'Armageddon'. The action comes one after another. I'm surprised they don't have blood splattering everywhere. They certainly blow enough stuff up. I'm not sure how many bribes it took to get the PG rating. The problem is that it occupies an area where the adults can't take it seriously, and the kids really shouldn't be watching.
TheLittleSongbird
I have nothing against remakes, and I had wanted to see Race to Witch Mountain for some time now. I think it is a decent movie, I do remember the original movie with fondness and feel it is a superior movie, however compared to other remakes I've seen like Psycho, Stepford Wives and Wicker Man Race to Witch Mountain is not a bad movie. It looks great visually, whether it is in the effects, the scenery, the cinematography or lighting. The soundtrack has some pleasing and memorable themes, direction is solid and the script while not award-worthy is good. The cast are fine, Dwayne Johnson carries the movie and he has so much charisma that it is a joy to watch him. AnnaSophia Robb once again proves herself a promising actress, and Ciaron Hinds is a fun villain. Only Carla Gugino disappoints, she's beautiful but her performance and character are dull and she and Johnson have no chemistry. The characters are on the stereotypical side particularly those of Gugino and Hinds, the pace is rather jerky in places and the story while having an appreciative nostalgia as well as a darkness the original didn't have I feel has a number of predictable spots. All in all, a decent if unexceptional family film. 6/10 Bethany Cox
Michael_Elliott
Race to Witch Mountain (2009) ** (out of 4) Disney's reboot/remake/sequel (or, once again, whatever) of ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN has a couple alien children (Anna Sophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig) landing on Earth and being chased by a group of men wanting to use their powers. Thankfully, for them at least, they ended up with a cab driver (Dwayne Johnson) who will protect them to the end. Perhaps it wasn't best for me to view ESCAPE and RETURN before viewing this third film in the series because when you watch the films so close together it's hard not to compare them. I found the 1975 and 1978 movies to be mildly entertaining even though they were nothing overly special but the biggest difference with this film is how much its been dumbed down. Instead of some sort of story we just get one loud, obnoxious explosion after another and in the end you can't help but feel that you've wasted your time. I think the screenplay is pretty poor but I guess this sort of thing passes for a kids movie today. None of the characters are written very and in fact I'd say there isn't a single one of them that has an ounce of a personality. It's hard to care for the alien children here because they're simply so cold and unlikeable. Part of the problem is without a doubt the screenplay but another problem is that the performances themselves are rather lame. Neither Robb or Ludwig have any energy and they come across very weak in the film. Perhaps this was what the director wanted and if so he deserves the blame but either way when your leads aren't entertaining then your movie is in trouble. I'm really not familiar with the work of Johnson in these kids movie but I found him to be pleasant here. He's certainly game for anything they throw at him including some of the silly humor. Tom Everett Scott, Ciaran Hinde and Garry Marshall wound out the supporting cast. In a nice move, Disney brought back Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann who played the children in the original movies. I had expected just a quick cameo but the writers went the extra mile and gave both of them nice parts. I'm really not sure how children will see this movie but for me it doesn't come close to the original two. I think the first two contain enough good moments to where most kids of today should still be able to enjoy them. As for adults, seeing the older movies will show how much better kids entertainment use to be.
