Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

Race to Witch Mountain is a 2009 American science fiction adventure thriller film directed by Andy Fickman and starring Dwayne Johnson in the lead role, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, Ciarán Hinds and Carla Gugino. The film is a remake of the 1975 Disney live-action film Escape to Witch Mountain, which is based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Alexander Key. It was Disney’s third film adaptation of the novel; the second was Escape to Witch Mountain (1995). Filming began in Los Angeles in March 2008. It was released on March 13, 2009 to mixed reviews but was a box office success. It is Johnson’s second collaboration with Fickman, following The Game Plan, which was also a live-action movie released by Disney.

Plot.

An alien spacecraft crashes near Searchlight, Nevada, 45 miles outside of Las Vegas. Project Moon Dust, a secret Defense Department unit led by Henry Burke, arrive at the scene of the crash in black helicopters. Men in black seize the spaceship and search for its passengers with the intention of harnessing their DNA and powers. Back in Las Vegas, Jack Bruno, a former mob get-away driver, works as a taxi cab driver to avoid returning to jail. One of his passengers is Dr. Alex Friedman, a failed astrophysicist who has come to Las Vegas to speak at a UFO convention at the Planet Hollywood hotel. After fending off two thugs who seek his services for a mob boss named Andrew Wolfe, Bruno finds two teenagers, Sara and Seth, in his cab. They offer $15,000 to drive them to an unknown destination. Burke’s men track down the teenagers (who turn out to be the spaceship’s passengers) through various discoveries such as stolen clothes, a car being burglarized, a bus leading to Las Vegas,

and an ATM being deprived of all of its contents, which eventually pinpoints their location in Bruno’s taxi. They engage Bruno in a high speed chase. Mistaking the government agents for more mob thugs, he tries to evade them with his driving skills. Seth’s ability to vary his molecular density, as well as Sara’s telepathy and telekinesis, helps the group to escape. When they arrive at an abandoned house, Bruno follows them out of concern and curiosity. The teenagers retrieve the device they were looking for within a hidden underground laboratory, but the three are attacked by the “Siphon”, a powerful armored alien assassin. The Siphon pursues the group until its spaceship crashes into a train and the creature is wounded. After Seth and Sara prove their otherworldly biology to Bruno, the three settle at a diner to calm their nerves, only to be tracked by and escape from Burke’s agents again. Bruno brings Seth and Sara to Dr. Friedman at the UFO convention.

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Despite initially dismissing Bruno’s story, she believes him after Seth and Sara show off their powers and narrate their current situation: they are aliens from a dying planet located 3,000 light years from Earth, and are able to travel by using wormholes on their spaceships. Its government intends to invade Earth, despite the majority of their race being fully opposed to the plan, so that their kind may survive. Seth and Sara’s parents are scientists who sought a way to save their planet without invasion, but were arrested before completing their experiment. The teenagers came to retrieve the successful results, but the alien government (who still have their sights on invading Earth rather than trying to save their home planet) sent the Siphon to stop them. To save both worlds, they must retrieve their spaceship and return home with the results in order to prevent the invasion from happening. Friedman then realizes that the teenagers are what she has been searching for and joins the group.

They meet fellow UFOlogist and conspiracy theorist Dr. Donald Harlan, who tells them that the spaceship was taken to the secret US government base named Witch Mountain. Harlan and his men distract the soldiers with Bruno’s taxi while the others escape to Witch Mountain in Harlan’s RV after evading the Siphon. The group arrives at the base, but are captured by Burke. He orders that the teenagers be prepared for vivisection, but Burke frees the adults, as he doesn’t think anyone will believe them. The Siphon attacks Witch Mountain and engages the soldiers, allowing Bruno and Friedman to infiltrate the base and free Seth and Sara. They launch the ship, escape through the mountain’s tunnels, and finally kill The Siphon, who has stowed away on the spaceship. The teenagers give Bruno and Friedman a tracking device that will allow the aliens to always find them. They tearfully wish them farewell, but not before Sara gives her telepathic powers to Bruno.

Production.

In April 2001, it was announced development had begun on a remake of Escape to Witch Mountain with writing duties handed to Adam Kulakow. In July 2007, Walt Disney Pictures hired Andy Fickman to direct Witch Mountain, a “modern re-imagining” of Escape to Witch Mountain, using a script by Matt Lopez. The following August, Dwayne Johnson (most notably famous for portraying The Rock in the WWE) was cast into a lead role, with filming scheduled to begin in March 2008. Fickman did not describe the film as a remake, defining his production as “a new chapter within the world of Witch Mountain”. The director also described the book, in which the films are based as “a very cool dark thriller” and anticipated drawing elements from it that did not exist in the 1975 film. By March 2008, filmmakers were using a new script written by Mark Bomback. The film was re-titled Race to Witch Mountain, and it began filming in Los Angeles in the same month

Home media.

Race to Witch Mountain was released on DVD and Blu-ray August 4, 2009 in three different sets; first, a single disc containing a wide-screen version of the film with no bonus features; second, a Deluxe-Edition that contains deleted scenes as well as other bonus features and a Digital Copy; third, a Blu-ray release with the same extras as the Deluxe Edition, along with a DVD copy of the film and a Digital Copy in the Blu-ray format.[citation needed]

Critical response.

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 42% rating based on 153 reviews, and an average rating of 5.12/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Despite the best efforts of a talented cast, Race to Witch Mountain is a tepid reboot that lacks the magic of the original.” On Metacritic, the film has a score of 52 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “B+” on an A+ to F scale.

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Box office.

The film was a box office hit. It became the first Disney film in 2009 to open at #1, grossing $24.4 million. The film went on to gross over $67 million at the North American domestic box office, and over $39 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $106 million.

Cast:

Dwayne Johnson as Jack Bruno
AnnaSophia Robb as Sara
Alexander Ludwig as Seth, brother of Sara
Carla Gugino as Dr. Alex Friedman
Ciarán Hinds as Henry Burke
Tom Woodruff Jr. as the Siphon
Garry Marshall as Dr. Donald Harlan
Tom Everett Scott as Mr. Matheson
Cheech Marin as Eddie Cortez
Eva Huang as Shira the UFO Huntress
Billy Brown as Mr. Carson
Dennis Hayden as Ray
William J. Birnes, the host of UFO Hunters
Whitley Strieber, author of Communion, in a cameo.