Reviews

It seems like the makers of this movie took a look at everything that made "Escape" so great and decided to forget it. Obviously they couldn't re-use the mystery about the two children (where do they come from? Why do they have these powers?). Still, they lost a lot of charme on other points.

The special effects seem hopelessly dated. This is easy to say in 2013 but they already seem hopelessly dated in comparison to "Escape" - which was made three years before. It doesn't help that "Return" shifts more focus onto these special effects - and puts less effort into it.

"Escape" had those two cute kids which worked great together. The first thing "Return" does is dividing them and letting Tony be a mindless zombie for (most of) the rest of the movie. Tia doesn't do much better. Her part of the movie mostly gets lost and divided between the four members of the Earthquake gang. At parts the movie feels like it wanted to showcase an epic "Tony vs Tia"-battle (with one having to be mind-controlled for that to happen) and maybe some viewers like their confrontations but at some points it is plain boring - showing both of them concentrating and a heat gauge going up and down. Keep in mind that during "Escape" the children had slightly different abilities (playing into their different characters). This is dropped in "Return"; they are interchangeable.

Mr. Yokomoto doesn't feel like an adult ally but more of a tool, somewhat pushing a "school is important"-morale down the viewers' throat. I believe he is meant to be similar to Jason O'Day who helped the children in "Escape", yet he lacks the backstory, character and sympathy that Jason had.

The name seems cheated, too. There is no "Witch Mountain" in this movie. It gets mentioned only very briefly and "Two psychic kids have a week of adventure in LA" seems more suited. This is even more obvious in the beginning when Uncle Bene drops those kids off, telling them to have fun. No adult supervision, no safeguards, the dangers of the "Escape" are completely forgotten. Just like the conflict between Tony and Tia is forced and Tia meeting the Earthquakes is forced (and seems random) plus Tony meeting Dr. Dracula is forced, even the beginning of everything seems forced and plotted.

"Return" drops the fun. This is even more obvious once you remember the puppet scene from "Escape" or the cat Winky or the haunting at the sheriff's office. Those were scenes with the kids having fun and laughing and smiling. Don't expect that stuff in "Return" - the fun is gone.

(Vote should be divided: 8 for first part, 4 for last part) I really liked that movie - in the beginning. It has a nice sense of humour and the story is not too unrealistic in our modern times.

Unfortunately the movie is too long - in the storical way.

Personally I always thought it funny that romance movies end with the Big Love and don't show the life that follows. This movie kind of shows the after-story. And that's what I don't like about it.

It should have ended at the moment Anna and Paul "found" each other and really fell in love. Perhaps Pauline could have written some bad sides of him in her book - with the good side: "is here".

Unfortunately it looks like someone decided at this moment "wait - let's not make a comical movie" and added some more adventures to urge it more into the "family" genre. Pauline's best friend has to move far away for some (in film terms) thrown-in-reason, Pauline starts to hate Pit and tries to run away to Brasilia.

I admit, the wedding scene between Pauline and Leon was wonderful and would have been hard to include without that after-story, but in the end, I would have liked the movie much more without the last twenty minutes or so.