Review: Race To Witch Mountain

Race to Witch Mountain stars Dwayne Johnson a.k.a. The Rock as Jack Bruno, a former destruction derby driver now trying to escape his criminal past and go legit as a Cab Driver in the crazy town of Las Vegas. Unbeknownst to him, a top secret Government Agency is monitoring a mysterious object that has crash landed somewhere in the nevada desert. It soon emerges that the smouldering wreckage is not only alien, but two humanoid figures were onboard, but are now missing. Bruno soons finds his latest fares may be more than he bargained for; instead of being incredibly weird rich aryan children with magic powers, they turn out to be aliens on the run – Uh-oh!

Essentially, the film is one long chase; through deserts, over train tracks, through casinos – it never lets up. It quite literally is a vehicle for Dwayne Johnson a.k.a. the Rock, or more importantly Dwayne Johnson a.k.a. The Rock’s eyebrows, to react – though I would never say that to his face. His acting isn’t great, but it doesn’t need to be – it’s not a proper film, it’s more of a game, eye candy. There is no real let up, no chance for tension, as if children some how can’t cope with seriousness.

On a similar level, the amount of special effects used is astonishing – remeniscent of the terminator, yet in a film which could quite easily be made for TV. My problem with this is that I remember classic Science Fiction films, such as Flight Of The Navigator where the special effects weren’t great, but there was more of a soul, it ignited your imagination. This has none of that quality, nothing which marks it out as special. Even modern classics such as Men In Black, which this film aspires towards, used puppetry over CGI, and played with conspiritorial ideas.

I wouldn’t say it is a bad film – far from it. If you are looking for a film to wear out the kids for a few hours, go for it. It certainly wasn’t in any way embarassing to watch as an adult, and for children unaware of this remake’s history, the exciting 90 minutes would be 90 minutes well spent. With Gadgets, explosions, aliens and gloop, it pops, whizzes and bangs better than some kids movies in recent years.

Race To Witch Mountain is out in the UK on the 10th April.
3/5 Stars