I must admit that I am a huge Disney fan. So as the fireworks went off over Cinderella’s castle and the Disney logo flashed across the bottom of the screen, I caught myself thinking, ‘Maybe this will turn out alright. Sure, its Dwayne Johnson, but these are the same folks that made Finding Nemo. It’s a classic film, why not?’ 

Unfortunately what you’ll find in Race to Witch Mountain is exactly what you’d expect to see in a movie made for the Disney channel, not a major motion picture release. I never saw the original so I can’t speak to the nostalgia effect, but the plot seemed clunky and outdated. There was a massive hole in the script — if these alien children can move things with their mind and block bullets, why do they need ‘The Rock’ to protect them? Not to mention that the presence of extra terrestrials is no longer a novel idea, but Disney did nothing to reinvent these aliens so it ended up looking like a couple conspiracy theorist’s making a YouTube video on the weekend. 

Since I was in the minority as a mid-20s male amongst a sea of parents and giddy young children, I thought perhaps this movie just wasn’t for me; maybe the young people in the theater were enamored with all the talk of spaceships and alien life. But the theater was lifeless throughout the show; kids weren’t excitedly asking their parents questions, they were trying not to doze off like I did for a few minutes. I heard more than a few parents comment on how much violence was in the movie, as Johnson solved nearly every conflict with his fists. 

Bottom line it was a Disney movie through and through. Johnson plays a Las Vegas taxi driver who begrudgingly accepts the responsibility of watching out for alien children Seth and Sara (Alexander Ludwig and Anna Sophia Robb) before getting roped into the conflict of saving Earth. Extraterrestrial life theorist Dr. Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino) gets involved and before she and Johnson can save the day they (naturally) fall in love. Everyone makes a pithy comment at some point, several of which are good for a laugh, and there is the requisite haphazard, self-depreciating character that everyone laughs at but feels sorry for. Nobody draws outside the lines of a children’s movie and everyone ends up happy. 

I want to know when “The Rock” became the Nickelodeon poster boy. When he made his transition to film in 2002 as the Scorpion King I thought he was destined to be an action star in the same vain of Sylvester Stallone — somebody who wasn’t talented but looked good kicking ass and could deliver one liners — but since then he has starred in such films as The Game Plan and is slated to appear in Tooth Fairy in 2009. 

Who would have thought his big money contract would be holding Race to With Mountain back from being a successful Disney Channel movie.

--Mark Collins

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