Chicago Sun-Times
"What Johnson does here is provide a credible tough guy action hero in a non-threatening mode. He rules over chases, fights, explosions and an Ooze monster, yet never seems nasty, so the kids can feel safe around him." 03/11/2009Hollywood Reporter
"It plays, in fact, like a sci-fi action adventure that genre fans of all ages will recognize as such....More importantly, it's entertaining with a crafty mixture of action, humor and drama." 03/11/2009 Los Angeles Times
"Robb is exceptional as Sara, delivering the stilted alien-speak lines as if she's been talking that way her entire life. And the chemistry between Robb and Johnson is just short of terrific -- you know Jack would protect Sara with his life and not because he has to." 03/13/2009 Washington Post
"Johnson is one of showbiz's most engaging leading men....[He] is a sly delight in RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN..." 03/13/2009 Variety
"[A] full-throttle crowd-pleaser....RACE justifies its title by coming off as much more of a high-velocity action-adventure than its predecessors." 03/11/2009 ReelViews 6 of 10
Race to Witch Mountain is the latest Disney "made for kids only" effort. It takes all the usual Disney hooks - cute children, a likeable protagonist, lame action and lamer jokes, some special effects, poker-faced bad guys, and an animal - and throws them into a story that makes no sense whatsoever. So, while children will be entertained by the flashy eye candy and pointless running around, adults will be obsessed with determining how such a nonsensical script could get made into a movie without at least a little more polishing. One supposes Disney is hoping to cash in on the inevitable nostalgia factor associated with the name "Witch Mountain." But, although this is technically a remake of the 1975 feature, Escape to Witch Mountain (which was subsequently re-done in 1995 as a made-for-TV production), it's mostly a different movie. While a few of the basic building blocks for the story remain, that's where similarities between Race and Escape end...The movie has not been made for post-pubescent viewers in mind. With productions like this, it's possible for children to get caught up in the moment without really caring why something is happening...For those who care about such things, the twins from the 1975 Escape to Witch Mountain (Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann) have small parts. He's the small town sheriff who faces off against Ciaran Hinds' agents and she's the blonde waitress who aids the new kids escape. If nothing else, their presence shows a little reverence for the past. Of course, it would have been more reverential if Disney had let Witch Mountain lie buried. This is not a story that cries out to be remade every 15-20 years. And, while the special effects and acting are getting better, the story isn't. Too bad this won't be the last time I'll say this for a Disney motion picture. No one is as adept as the Magic Kingdom when it comes to recycling. But the green they're looking for has nothing to do with conservation. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
Before the sneak preview of "Race to Witch Mountain," they had a little quiz show and gave away T-shirts. One question: "Who plays Jack Bruno"? Half the audience roared, "The Rock"! Not one lonely vote for Dwayne Johnson. The other famous movie "Rock" was born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. It's a name that stays in the mind...I think Dwayne Johnson has a likable screen presence and is a good choice for an innocuous family entertainment like this, and also he once sent me some Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Brickle. I would have mailed it back because film critics are not supposed to accept gifts from movie stars, but I accidentally ate it first. What Johnson does here is provide a credible tough guy action hero in a non-threatening mode. He rules over chases, fights, explosions and an Ooze Monster, yet never seems nasty, so the kids can feel safe around him...Young audiences will like the kids in the movie, played by AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig. And in using kids as the co-stars, the movie has its cake and eats, too, because Sara and Seth may look like they're 15 or 16, but actually, you see, they're aliens whose flying saucer crash-landed and is being held at a secret government UFO facility inside Witch Mountain -- so secret, the mountain is not shown on Google Maps. I suspected right away it was a mountain made for this movie, because it is shaped like a sawed-off version of the mashed potato sculpture that Richard Dreyfuss kept sculpting in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" -- the one that resembled, you remember, the outcrop where the flying saucer landed...Further details I will leave for your discovery. Since Seth and Sara only appropriated the bodies of human teenagers, I was left with a couple of questions. (1) Did they displace real teenagers or only clone themselves? (2) They're cute, but what do they actually look like as aliens? Not quivering gobs of mucilaginous viscidity, I trust. - Roger Ebert
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