ALIENS - MOVIE REVIEWS RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN

MOVIE REVIEWS RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN

Roger Ebert gives Race to Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson the mildest sort of recommendation "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," he writes. Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal also registers a lukewarm reaction to Johnson's performance Johnson, he says, "is always an appealing presence as well as an imposing one, and he's got a gift for comedy that's been waiting to be sharpened and refined. It's still waiting." A.O. Scott in the New York Times is equally unenthusiastic. Scott took his 10-year-old daughter along to the screening. "When the movie was over, as my own impressions buzzed distractingly around in my head, I asked her what she thought. "It was OK," she said. "It was pretty noisy, though." Really, what more can I add?" Kyle Smith in the New York Post compares this Witch Mountain with the '70s' original about a couple of aliens disguised as children. The original, he writes, "which came during a far-out era when people actually believed in aliens, devils and Jimmy Carter, looks like a classic compared to this very loose remake." But Elizabeth Weitzman cautions in her New York Daily News review that the movie "bears little resemblance to its predecessor. ... So anybody who loved the original as a kid - and I speak as someone who watched it often enough to break the Betamax - would be well served to check their expectations at the door."

NOTE Review summaries of The Last House on the Left and Miss March will appear here on Monday.

13/05/2009