MOVIEmeter
Top 5000
Up 537 this week

Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

5.7
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 5.7/10 from 27,122 users   Metascore: 52/100
Reviews: 104 user | 164 critic | 28 from Metacritic.com

A Las Vegas cabbie enlists the help of a UFO expert to protect two siblings with paranormal powers from the clutches of an organization that wants to use the kids for their nefarious plans.

Director:

Writers:

(screenplay), (screenplay), 2 more credits »
Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 2653 titles created 11 months ago
 
a list of 91 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 1500 titles created 1 month ago
 
a list of 358 titles created 9 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

Race to Witch Mountain (2009) on IMDb 5.7/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Race to Witch Mountain.
2 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Action | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.7/10 X  

Sean Anderson partners with his mom's husband on a mission to find his grandfather, who is thought to be missing on a mythical island.

Director: Brad Peyton
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson
Planet 51 (2009)
Animation | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.1/10 X  

American astronaut Captain Charles "Chuck" Baker lands on Planet 51 thinking he's the first person to step foot on it. To his surprise, he finds that this planet is inhabited by little green people who are happily living in a white picket fence world, and whose only fear is that it will be overrun by alien invaders...like Chuck!

Directors: Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad, and 1 more credit »
Stars: Jessica Biel, John Cleese, Dwayne Johnson
Action | Adventure | Family
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.7/10 X  

On a quest to find out what happened to his missing brother, a scientist, his nephew and their mountain guide discover a fantastic and dangerous lost world in the center of the earth.

Director: Eric Brevig
Stars: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem
City of Ember (2008)
Adventure | Family | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.4/10 X  

For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing ... and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker.

Director: Gil Kenan
Stars: David Ryall, Bill Murray, Toby Jones
Jumanji (1995)
Adventure | Family | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.6/10 X  

When two kids find and play a magical board game, they release a man trapped for decades in it and a host of dangers that can only be stopped by finishing the game.

Director: Joe Johnston
Stars: Robin Williams, Jonathan Hyde, Kirsten Dunst
Adventure | Comedy | Family
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.3/10 X  

A group of kids must protect their vacation home from invading aliens.

Director: John Schultz
Stars: Carter Jenkins, Austin Butler, Ashley Tisdale
Inkheart (2008)
Adventure | Family | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6/10 X  

A young girl discovers her father has an amazing talent to bring characters out of their books and must try to stop a freed villain from destroying them all, with the help of her father, her aunt, and a storybook's hero.

Director: Iain Softley
Stars: Brendan Fraser, Sienna Guillory, Eliza Bennett
Adventure | Family | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.6/10 X  

Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.

Director: Mark Waters
Stars: Freddie Highmore, Mary-Louise Parker, Sarah Bolger
Adventure | Family | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.8/10 X  

A teenager discovers he's the descendant of a Greek god and sets out on an adventure to settle an on-going battle between the gods.

Director: Chris Columbus
Stars: Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Steve Coogan
Family | Sci-Fi
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.3/10 X  

Two siblings begin to develop special talents after they find a mysterious box of toys. Soon the kids, their parents, and even their teacher are drawn into a strange new world and find a task ahead of them that is far more important than any of them could imagine!

Director: Robert Shaye
Stars: Chris O'Neil, Joely Richardson, Timothy Hutton
Adventure | Family | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.9/10 X  

Four kids travel through a wardrobe to the land of Narnia and learn of their destiny to free it with the guidance of a mystical lion.

Director: Andrew Adamson
Stars: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley
Action | Adventure | Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.1/10 X  

Two young brothers are drawn into an intergalactic adventure when their house is magically hurtled through space because of the board game they are playing.

Director: Jon Favreau
Stars: Jonah Bobo, Josh Hutcherson, Dax Shepard
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
John Duff ...
...
Kevin Christy ...
Edit

Storyline

In Las Vegas, the regenerated ex-con Jack Bruno works as taxi driver. During an UFO Convention at Planet Hollywood, the skeptical Jack picks up Dr. Alex Friedman, who will present a scientific lecture in the event. Then he is pressed by two henchmen of his former boss, the criminal Wolff, that wants to talk to him, but Jack does not want to return to the crime life. Jack fights and gets rid of them; out of the blue, he finds two teenagers on the backseat of his cab. They tell that they are siblings, Sara and Seth, and they need to travel to a location outside Las Vegas in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile the government finds a spacecraft that crashed nearby Las Vegas and is chasing the two aliens; after the investigation of the men of Major Henry Burke, they discover that the two siblings are the aliens. Jack Bruno, Sara and Seth are chased by Henry Burke's team and by the "Syphon", a killer from outer space that has been sent to kill them by the military of their planet that want to ... Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Taglines:

The Race Is On


Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for sequences of action and violence, frightening and dangerous situations, and some thematic elements | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Official Sites:

|

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

13 March 2009 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Witch Mountain  »

Box Office

Budget:

$65,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£581,250 (UK) (10 April 2009)

Gross:

£2,545,316 (UK) (24 July 2009)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

| |

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Meredith Salenger plays Natalie Gann in this movie. She also played the lead in The Journey of Natty Gann when she was a child. See more »

Goofs

At the table scene in the restaurant, during a short conversation between Jack and the kids, food and drinks appear on the table, without being served. See more »

Quotes

Jack Bruno: [Rushing out of the gambling area] Gotta go!
Dr. Alex Friedman: What happened to laying low?
Jack Bruno: Who lays low in Vegas?
See more »

Crazy Credits

In the beginning of the movie the camera view changes from the Walt Disney "Castle" to the stars and the Castle gets dark and changes the silhouette of the "Witch Mountain" See more »

Connections

References Space Channel 5 (1999) See more »

Soundtracks

"Perdoname"
Written by Juan Zambrana
Performed by Sonic Quiver
Courtesy of 5 Alarm Music
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
Race Away from Witch Mountain
24 March 2009 | by (United States) – See all my reviews

Dwayne Johnson plays Jack Bruno, Las Vegas cabbie, and Carla Gugino is Dr. Alex Friedman, UFO expert. Perhaps you saw the preview in which Bruno and Friedman are crawling thru a tubular tunnel and she admits to a bit of claustrophobia. Just then Bruno reaches an opening into a deep vertical shaft and asks "How are you with heights?". It was a good scene, with a bit of low-key but contextually appropriate humor that the former Rock has learned to deliver effectively, making him a big, strapping brute of a guy that you feel comfortable with. But that scene isn't in the film itself. Instead, we see the aftermath, in which Friedman is still a bit freaked out, for no apparent reason.

The rest of the movie was like that, too. People seemed to be doing things with no credible motives. The 2 adults flee from no fewer than 4 sets of pursuers exhibiting varying degrees of hostility (The Government, a space-alien cross between Predator and Inspector Javert, Bruno's former mob boss Mr. Wolf and his henchthugs, and the LVPD). They do so to protect 2 teenage Swedish, I mean space, aliens who are here to retrieve the mcguffin, um, recording device that will prevent their planet from launching a hostile takeover, uh, invasion. The gal of the pair, Sara, is played by AnnaSophia Robb. We know from her performance in Bridge to Terabithia (2007, 9*) that she can be a tremendously appealing young actress, but here she gets to do stuff like pointing her finger and monotonically saying "Go that way, Jack Bruno.". The boy, Seth, is played by Alexander Ludwig, a cipher.

The government's head alien tracker warns Bruno that the kids are not what they seem to be. Anyone who's ever seen a science-fiction movie (which apparently includes precisely zero of any characters who are actually IN an SF movie) can only begin to imagine what might lurk beneath those placid blond exteriors, but this proves singularly untroubling for Bruno, leading right up to the snuggle-bunny ending (Disney, y'know), which was likewise not well set up by any of the preceding events.

The scenes set at a UFO convention make good sport of fannish stereotypes, which some people might find offensive but I choose to treat as endearing. And I loved the sly humor that they DID leave in the script, wherein Bruno asks the kids at the controls of the flying saucer "Do you know how to fly this thing?", they respond "How do you think we got here?", and he replies "Well, you crashed!". More of that, from another couple of passes thru the typer, would have earned this one an upgrade.

–––––

*Best SF&F film of the 21st Century so far, IMHO


14 of 20 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Any news/update for a sequel? biliam1982
So, this is the Stargate sequel? mariohammerjr
realistic reaction to aliens? danaenicole
we're alien TrailerMusicVibe
Discuss Race to Witch Mountain (2009) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page