Race to Witch Mountain

Though clearly designed to echo the fun action/adventure fare that Disney once cranked out on a fairly regular basis, Race to Witch Mountain suffers from a pervasively stagnant atmosphere that effectively drains the energy right out of its high-octane moments – which, given that the film is essentially one long chase sequence, ensures that there’s really never a point at which one is wholeheartedly drawn into the proceedings. The movie follows adolescent alien siblings Sara (AnnaSophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig) as they convince a Las Vegas cab driver (Dwayne Johnson’s Jack Bruno) to help them track down their missing spaceship, with their ongoing efforts hindered by a team of persistent government agents (led by Ciaran Hinds’ Henry Burke). The relatively promising nature of Race to Witch Mountain‘s setup is squandered time and again by screenwriters Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback, as the pair’s efforts at capturing (and sustaining) the viewer’s interest consistently fall flat and there’s subsequently little doubt that the movie primarily comes off as a hollow, relentlessly noisy endeavor. It’s just as clear that the roster of uniformly underdeveloped characters contributes heavily to the vibe of egregious emptiness, with Johnson’s expectedly charismatic work almost compensating for the far-from-fleshed-out nature of his onscreen alter ego (almost). Director Andy Fickman’s inexperience (and obvious discomfort) with this sort of endeavor results in a myriad of hopelessly incompetent and downright incoherent action set-pieces, and one ultimately can’t help but wonder to just which demographic Race to Witch Mountain has been geared toward (ie small children might find certain elements a little too scary, while the obnoxiously propulsive structure will surely alienate adults).

** out of ****