"Escape to Witch Mountain" is quite fun, really. It's a pure Disney heyday '70s film about two alien children (Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann) in the modern world of orphanages, old grumpy men in campers and villainous rich guys out to get you. Ahhh, the 1970s. It's a wonderful lark written, photographed and plotted with the absolute exact innocence and smallness of a child. Dig the jail scene, every shot is from a child's angle. It's dated, yes, and a bit too innocent, but that's the charm. B+
The sequel "Return to Witch Mountain" (1978) is far less satisfying. The junior aliens (Richards and Eisenmann) are older but somehow more naive. The film itself is brain dead, too. We sent the fist film watching the kiddies run for the safety of home, in a mountain, but here ... they get left and lost in Los Angeles. As the villains, Christopher Lee and Bette Davis give stunningly awful performances. Davis particularly is shrill. Only Anthony James ("Unforgiven") provides fun as a lowly henchman. C
Lean on Pete
6 years ago
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