Return From Witch Mountain
Tia and Tony return from Witch Mountain to see the sights of the big city on a vacation from their home in Witch Mountain but encounter more trouble than they bargained for.
Film making 15/25
Cinematography 15/25
Audio 18/25
Bonus Features 24/25
Total 72/100
Tia and Tony Malone are back, played by Kim Richards and Ike Eisemann, on a vacation to Los Angeles to take a break from their work setting up the colony of aliens at Witch Mountain. Their Uncle Bene drop the kids off at the empty Rose Bowl Stadium and have arranged for the kids to have a little holiday.
On their way to their hotel Professor Gannon played by Christopher Lee and Letha played by Bette Davis are experimenting with a mind control device on Letha’s nephew who falls off a building. Tony senses the nephew is in trouble and goes to find out what is happening to arrive on the scene as the nephew, Sickle played by Anthony James, is plummeting to the street.
Tony uses his telekinesis to stop Sickle from serious harm from the fall and Tony rushes around the corner to find out if the nephew is all right and see what was going on with the three. Professor Gannon sees Tony’s powers and wants to use them to his own ends and kidnaps Tony by drugging him using a conveniently handy hypodermic needle with a drug he just happens to be carrying.
Tia rushes to his aide only to arrive too late to prevent the three from taking off with her brother and Tia spends the rest of the movie trying to rescue her brother. Tia finds some friends in a group of truant kids who are trying to be a tough gang and they find a common cause in evading truant officers and finding her brother.
Professor Gannon is experimenting on mind control devices and puts one on Tony to control him and use his powers to his own ends. Tia uses her new friends to rescue Tony and defeat the plans of Letha from stealing but only gets caught by the professor who uses Tony to trap Tia.
When Tia is partially drugged in the lab she uses a lab goat named Alfred to warn her friends of where she is to get help while the professor and Letha are out scouting their next caper. They are planning to rob a mining facility of plutonium for use as a nuclear bomb but Tia finds out what is going on and saves the day with her friends.
Return From Witch Mountain is a decent film and almost follows in the same vein of the previous movie but misses the mark a bit trying to recreate a great film. Return From Witch Mountain does a decent job as a sequel but does not include the same Disney family quality using more of the other actors and their greed instead of the cute kids and their abilities as a staple of the film.
The movie lacks the same direction as the previous Witch Mountain film and moves toward a poorly crafted good guy bad guy film that lacks an overall well done film. I did enjoy the film some but in the wacky adventure with too many bad jokes and poor sight gags way.
Return From Witch Mountain Family Classics Edition also contains a good amount of bonus content with a making of feature, audio commentary, interviews, a 1978 Disney Studio Album and more. The bonus content adds a lot to the film and more of the additions with the grown up actors from the first and this sequel that makes a fun and entertaining addition to the film.
While this film was not as good as the first Witch Mountain film it does a good job with the bonus content and additional features to make the film a worthwhile purchase. The film has plenty of additional content that is quite good and also has the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, French and Spanish language tracks and French and Spanish subtitles.
Return From Witch Mountain is a pretty good film but does miss the mark, it does however contain a movie pass just like the previous film for the movie Race to Witch Mountain starring Dwayne Johnson. The movie pass is available from the internet with the code on the DVD movie Return From Witch Mountain that is valid till April 4, 2009.