Race to Witch Mountain: Critic Reviews

The planet-hopping children have special talents -- telekinesis, telepathy etc. -- although it is the high-wattage lovability of Mr. Rock that's the real superpower on display here.

Modest and diverting, rough and bland, with some good (if not quite Bette Davis caliber) actors and so-so special effects.

Mediocre family fare that's simply not that much fun.

The movie has Johnson, who lifts the script above its conventional cat-and-mouse stratagems with his buoyant wiseacre timing.

This is not a movie. It's a coming attraction for a theme park.

Cracking one-liners and alternating between world-weariness and growing affection for his charges, Johnson is wonderful -- much better than his material.

While Escape was superior in story, Race does commit to an impressive scope.

Everything's a familiar plug-in from contemporary pop culture, every new development is brisk, bloodless and banal.

Although Race to Witch Mountain is about space travelers, little soars here. The film is so by-the-book (and we don't mean Key's 1968 novel) that it's hard to recount it without reverting to blahblahblah.

Race to Witch Mountain" is made for kids, with a mix of family-friendly thrills and conspiracy mythos and special-effects action ... think of it as "The PG Files."

Since Seth and Sara only appropriated the bodies of human teenagers, I was left with a couple of questions.

...while "Race to Witch Mountain" rarely rises above the functional, either as storytelling or as visual kinetics, it moves like it means it and keeps Johnson front and center, either fuming or sputtering.

The film doesn't really have a plot. It's more of a premise, cartoonishly executed.

Race to Witch Mountain is a satisfying snack of a family adventure. It doesn't condescend to youngsters or shortchange adults.

Race to Witch Mountain isn't magic, but it moves.

It's a pleasant-enough diversion. Who knows, maybe the sequel will improve on this. Because from the looks of things at the end, there's bound to be one.

Johnson continues to flex his muscles as a charismatic screen presence, and here once again demonstrates his ego-free willingness to make himself the butt of jokes even as he does his derring-do.

Bears all the signs of having been composed by an inferior race of alien screenwriters from the Hackulon System.

Race to Witch Mountain is the first kids' film in ages to have action beats that measure up to Hollywood's grownup action fare.

It's a fast, funny, frightening and family-friendly movie, an affectionate tribute to the original, and a vintage thrill ride enhanced by modern visual trickery, crazy characters -- and a soupcon of skepticism.

A couple of 10-year-old boys all hopped up on concession-stand soda would be ideal companions for Disney's latest: Race to Witch Mountain.

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.

Action and sci-fi thrills blend nicely with comedy in one of Disney's best action movies this side of Jerry Bruckheimer.