Back to ‘Witch Mountain’: Disney updates it with a fast-paced action flick

Audiences looking for family friendly, cornball escapism (and plenty are, see "Paul Blart") could do worse than "Race to Witch Mountain."

This action-movie update of the Disney franchise from the 1970s features Dwayne Johnson as a cranky cabbie who picks up two blond kids and ends up in the middle of a mission to save the Earth.

Sarah (AnnaSophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig) are tele-pathic/kinetic aliens sent here to find a device that will save both their planet and ours.

They're pursued by a cyborg assassin, and by agents of the U.S. government, leaving the filmmakers free to make many shameless references to "Predator," "The Terminator" and "E.T."

Director Andy Fickman keeps the action coming - Johnson plays a demolition derby driver moonlighting as a cabbie, and dodges (sometimes) SUVs, trains, choppers and spaceships as he helps the children reach Witch Mountain, where all is resolved.

The movie is set in Vegas, setting up a potentially funny wrinkle. The city is hosting a sci-fi convention, and the alien children hide out amid overflowing crowds of UFO wackos and outer-space enthusiasts.

The writers might have done more with this, though I doubt younger viewers will lament the movie's shortfall of satiric imagination (or Johnson's stiff line readings).

"Race to Witch Mountain" moves fast enough to minimize its flaws, and its good nature is most welcome. "Watchmen" alumna Carla Gugino turns up as an astrophysicist who helps the children on their mission to save two worlds, and how nice to encounter a movie that believes people are worth saving.

And how nice for Gugino, and for us, that nobody is slamming her head on a pool table.