Race to Witch Mountain

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Sara: "My brother and I... We are not from your planet."
Jack: "Well you don't look like aliens."
Sara: "What does an alien look like?"
Jack: "You know what aliens look like! They're little green people with antennas and "Take me to your leader Earthlings!"

Race to Witch Mountain is a 2009 Disney action film starring former wrestler Dwayne Johnson. It is a remake/reboot of the Witch Mountain movies from The Seventies (Escape To, Return To, and Beyond) The story consists of two aliens (who look just like humans) crash landing on earth. The Government takes their ship to a top-secret research facility, Witch Mountain. From there the two aliens; Seth and Sara hail a cab, brandish a large wad of money, and tell the driver, Jack Bruno, to go "that way". They end up at a run-down house. The cab driver follows the teenagers inside (against their will). The teenagers activate a secret passage and end up at a lush, tropical paradise. They find a large, gooey orb and extract a device from it. Then they get attacked by a large, mechanical "suit of armor".

Tropes used in Race to Witch Mountain include:
  • 90% of Your Brain: the kids explain that Earthlings are capable of telekinesis too and don't because "you don't use your full brain capacity".
  • Alien Abduction: Subverted. In this case, it is the aliens who are captured (by humans).
  • Aliens Speaking English: Albeit Spock Speak.
  • Are We There Yet?: "good in any universe".
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: How Dr. Friedman cleared the area where the spaceship was being stored and studied.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Jack Bruno. At least he's attractive.
  • Disney Villain Death: The Siphon doesn't exactly fall to his death - he falls into the exhaust port of the kids' spaceship and is disintegrated.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: The Siphon was sent by parts of the kids' home world's government that don't want them succeed and isn't operating of its own accord. Despite this, we see next to nothing of whoever sent the thing, making the Siphon the main villain of the film.
  • Elaborate Underground Base: Witch Mountain.
  • Everything Is Online: The Government can pull up every Magical Security Cam in Las Vegas in just a few seconds.
  • Expy: The Siphon is basically a Predator. Their masks and even their faces beneath the masks look alike.
  • Five Rounds Rapid: The alien assassin hunter just stands there for an entire fight scene with the military as bullets ineffectually bounce off his armor. Nobody thinks to get a bigger gun.
  • Fly At the Camera Ending: with the flying saucer.
  • Flying Saucer: The design of the kids' spaceship.
  • Forgot About His Powers: No limit is really set as to how often the children can use their powers. Because of this, it isn't made particularly clear why the bounty hunter is a threat to them when Seth can become an Intangible Man and actually apply this power to people he's in contact with. On the other hand, the Siphon was created by their home world, so they probably know more about it than we do.
  • Gilligan Cut: After the dog enter the cab there's a scene where Sara says that the dog "needs to go" and it ends like this:

Jack: "... conversation with a dog(!) so my answer is still no."
Cue the scene where the dog comes back from where he had to go.

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