Review of Escape to Witch Mountain

The 1975 version was a charming film, so the writers here had a hard feat to make this 1995 TV remake as good. Surprisingly, it is not as good, to be honest I found it rather average, but it does have some redeeming merits. The obvious plus is the cast, Elizabeth Moss and Erik Von Detten are appealing as Danny and Anna, and Robert Vaughn while not as malevolent as Ray Milland is suitably nasty as Edward Bolt. Among them and doing more than adequately are Brad Dourif, Henry Gibson and Vincent Shiavelli. The film is nicely shot, Bolt's house looks amazing and the special effects are decent for a TV movie. However, the script is weak and the plot is formulaic in a lot of places. Consequently it lacked the charm of the 1975 film. Also for an 87 minute film, it is rather short, so the character development wasn't particularly that strong. Though Danny and Anna's chemistry was believable enough, the music was lovely and the ending had a sense of poignancy. Overall, not great but not a complete time-waster. 5/10 Bethany Cox