Review: Return from Witch Mountain (DMC #67)
Tia and Tony are back in this week’s film, Return from Witch Mountain. It’s the sequel to Escape to Witch Mountain and the 67th film in our Disnerd Movie Challenge! The synopsis is below if you need a refresher, otherwise jump down to our review.
Synopsis
Uncle Bene lands the family’s flying saucer at the center of the empty Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, to drop off Tia and Tony so they can spend some time exploring Los Angeles. The siblings get into a waiting taxi with Eddie, their driver. Meanwhile, a mad scientist named Victor Gannon has installed a mind control device behind the ear of a man named Sickle while Sickle’s aunt, Letha, looks on. Though Sickle is terrified of heights, Victor uses a controller to command Sickle to climb to the top of a nearby building. Back in the taxi cab, the vehicle runs out of gas. While Eddie walks to a gas station, Tony gets a vision of someone falling off a building and leaves Tia in the car while he checks it out. Sickle begins walking along the edge of the building at Victor’s command. Letha tries to grab the controller from Victor stop Sickle, but it accidentally falls to the ground and is damaged. Victor is no longer able to control Sickle, who walks off the edge and plummets to the ground. Tony uses his powers to save Sickle before he hits the ground, suspending him in the air. Victor realizes Tony is the cause. While Letha distracts Tony, Victor knocks Tony out with a tranquilizer. Tia immediately realizes something is wrong with Tony and goes looking for him. Eddie drives off without the children. During her search, Tia comes across four boys running away from a gang called the Golden Goons. Tia and the boys are cornered in an alley, but Tia uses her telepathy to drive the Golden Goons off. The boys thank Tia, introducing themselves as Rocky, Muscles, Crusher, and Dazzler—the Earthquake Gang. The boys want to be the toughest gang around, though they offer to help Tia find Tony in thanks for saving them. They are nearly caught by Mr. “Yo-Yo” Yokomoto, a truant officer trying to bring the boys back to school. The gang takes Tia to their hideout, and Tia tries to telepathically contact Tony. Meanwhile, Tony is strapped to a table, unconscious. Victor says that his experiments could finally get him recognition from the scientific community, while Letha chides Victor and demands that he pay her back for her investment in his work. Victor installs a mind control device behind Tony’s ear and orders him to wake up. He now has Tony under his control. Victor plans to use Tony’s abilities to further his ambitions, while Letha schemes with Sickle to use Tony for financial gain.
Letha and Sickle take Tony to a museum, where the 49er Gold Exhibit is taking place. As Tia continues her search for Tony, this time with the help from the Earthquake Gang, she gets a flash into Tony’s mind and sees the gold bars as well as a stagecoach and mannequins. Dazzler realizes she is looking at the museum, and the group runs off to that location. Sickle parks his car at one of the museum’s exits, while Letha commands Tony to cause a diversion in the exhibit by rolling the stagecoach around the floor. The museum patrons are surprised, and the security guards try to stop the stagecoach. Letha has Tony cause “total chaos” which Tony does by making many of the other inanimate objects move around and fly. He also short-circuits the control system. Back at his home, Victor finds Tony and his controller missing. He inspects Letha’s office and deduces where she has gone after looking at the newspaper headline. Chaos continues to ensue at the museum as the security guards try in vain to hold off the moving vehicles and mannequins. In all the commotion, Letha forces Tony to create a hole in the casing holding the gold bars, then make the bars fly outside to Sickle’s car (although they fly with so much force that they damage the car). Tia and the boys arrive at the exhibit, where Tia uses her own powers to reverse what Tony has done. She spots Tony leaving with Letha, who sees Tia and is told by Tony that she is his sister and has similar abilities. Victor arrives at the museum, and he, Letha, Sickle, and Tony escape in Victor’s car while leaving all the gold behind. Sickle can’t start the car and Letha deduces that Tia used her powers to stall the car. Victor commands Tony to make the car run. Yo-Yo suddenly arrives in his minibus and Tia convinces Yo-Yo to chase down Victor’s car by claiming Tony is another school truant. All along the way Tony is forced to try to stop the minibus, while Tia uses her powers to counteract her brother’s. Tony succeeds after causing light to reflect in Yo-Yo’s eyes and the minibus crashes. Thankfully, he and the kids are okay. Tia and the boys run off and leave Yo-Yo behind, who laments the damage now caused to “city property.” Victor scolds Letha and Sickle, but Letha argues back that she has yet to receive any returns on her investment in Victor. He comes up with an idea that will bring them both prestige and wealth. The group also realizes that they need to get rid of Tia so their plans can succeed. That night, Tony contacts Tia telepathically and guides her to Victor’s home. There, Tia meets a goat named Alfred and finds Tony strapped to a chair and blindfolded. Before she can do anything to help him, Sickle sneaks up behind her and knocks her out with chloroform.
Tia is put into a coma. The Earthquake Gang returns to their hideout and finds her missing. Tia gains partial consciousness and telepathically convinces Alfred the goat to escape and find the boys. Meanwhile, Victor, Letha, Sickle, and Tony arrive at a plutonium plant. Sickle and Letha are uneasy when Victor implies he will make Tony blow up a plutonium bomb unless they are paid, but he assures the pair that the scientists at the lab won’t let that happen. Alfred continues his search for the boys and comes across Eddie the tax driver. The goat slips into the taxi and forces another rider out. When Eddie realizes he’s driving a goat, he freaks out and crashes into a parked police car. Alfred runs off and finds the boys’ hideout. He grabs Tia’s vest and runs off while the boys chase after him. They arrive at Victor’s lab and free Tia. At the plant, Tony shuts down the plant’s cooling system at Victor’s command. Victor calls the scientists and threatens to send plutonium into the atmosphere unless they come up with five million dollars cash, a private jet and safe escort to the airport, and recognition for himself. Tia gets flashes into Tony’s mind so they can find him, but the images are unclear. They find Yo-Yo with his destroyed minivan, who sadly reveals he is to be fired. The group feel guilty for him losing his job when all he wanted to do was help. Suddenly, the minibus’s radio announces trouble at the plutonium plant. After listening, Tia realizes that’s where Tony is. She uses her powers to make Yo-Yo’s vehicle run again and they rush off to the plant. Though the scientists and security guards attempt to stop them, Tia and the gang manage to get down to the control system and find Tony, Victor, Letha, and Sickle. Tia tries getting through to Tony, but can’t, so she and the boys split off to restore power to the cooling system. As Tia runs around the plant, Victor orders Tony to stop her through various means, although Tia once more counteracts all of the attempts. She, Rocky, and Crusher find the emergency cooling system. Tia and Tony enter a battle of wills. Tia succeeds in turning the system back on. Shortly after, Tia reunites with Tony face to face, but Victor keeps forcing Tony to attack her. Finally, having had enough, Victor orders Tony to pretend he has regained his memory and trick Tia. Tony lures Tia right under a heavy crate and attempts to crush her with it. Tia holds it off as best as she can but is nearly crushed. As Victor aggressively commands Tony to kill his sister, Tia spots the controller in Victor’s hands and makes it short-circuit. At last, Tony is free of Victor’s mind control. Tia takes the device from behind Tony’s ear. Victor tries to persuade Tony to help him, but Tony makes Victor, Letha, and Sickle fly up to the ceiling. All the kids and Yo-Yo go to the Rose Bowl so Tia and Tony can meet with Uncle Bene. In thanks for everything he did, the siblings fully repair Yo-Yo’s minivan, much to Yo-Yo’s shock. The Earthquake Gang begins to respectfully call him Mr. Yokomoto, who gleefully realizes he will be able to keep his job. The boys decide they will go back to school as well. Tia and Tony reunite with Uncle Bene and return to Witch Mountain in their flying saucer while the Earthquake Gang looks on. The boys return to Mr. Yokomoto, but he doesn’t believe their story of the flying saucer.
Thoughts Before Watching
Kevin: We’re back with Tia and Tony, I see! Escape to Witch Mountain was good, although I know that’s not the best measure of whether the sequel will be as good. After all, we’ve had a mix of sequels that do either better or worse than their predecessor. Still, I’m optimistic about this one if for no other reason than we have the same kid actors back playing our lead characters. Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann had awesome chemistry in the original movie and played a huge part in making it so endearing.
Megan: I’m curious to see if this one is as good as Escape to Witch Mountain. As I mentioned in our review of the first film in this series, I’m curious to see if these sequels are true sequels that follow the same set of kids or if the sequels follow different sets of kids. From the looks of the promo image for Return from Witch Mountain, it’s looking like it might be a true sequel with the same kids. Guess we’ll see how this series shapes up!
Thoughts After Watching
Tony’s lack of agency is disappointing
Kevin: Let me start by saying that I really love that this film made Tia the heroine of the story! Because so many films often have women or girls as the characters who need rescuing, it’s a refreshing take to have the trope turned around and let a young girl be the one to save a boy. This isn’t the first time we see this happen and it won’t be the last, but it’s awesome all the same to see this change in an older film. The plot allows Tia to shine even further by showing us her power, both supernatural and natural. Of course, she is powerful because of her abilities. However, Tia is also powerful by showing leadership. She is, after all, the one to round up the Earthquake Gang and come up with the plans to rescue her brother. Tia continues to be a fresh character and stellar role model, and especially so in a genre that often appeals to men and boys more than women and girls (although that is often the fault of a society that divides entertainment into outdated categories of “masculine” vs. “feminine”).
This all said, I do wish Tony had not spent all of the film under Victor’s mind control. Again, part of what made the first film so good was the strong relationship between Tia and Tony. As Megan said in our review of the first film, “they’re true partners in everything.” By separating them for nearly the entire film in the sequel, that strong relationship loses its strength. Tia, powerful as she is, was shown in the original movie to rely on her brother just as much as Tony relied on her, and that was with Tia being the more powerful of the two siblings. But what makes it a bit worse is that Tony being under mind control the whole time doesn’t just weaken the relationship—it makes it disappear entirely. The wonderful banter and rapport between Tia and Tony is completely absent and makes the sequel feel rather empty, especially when realizing that this film has little to do with the original (more on that below). I stand by that having Tia rescue Tony is a needed change to an outdated formula, and I think that the writers still could have done this without completely taking away Tony’s agency. One way I believe this could have been done is to have Tony be kidnapped by Victor, but he can make multiple attempts to escape his captor only for Victor to somehow outsmart him. This would keep Tia our main heroine as she ventures out to save Tony, while giving Tony his agency and forcing the siblings to work out problems on their own (or they could still use their telepathy to try to help each other; either way, it makes both children still have power). This would also have the added bonus of making Victor a more interesting villain. One of the slight criticisms I have about this film and the first is that Tia and Tony never really experience obstacles, and their powers tend to solve all their issues. Those moments where the bad guys nearly win are more due to our good guys slipping up a bit than the villains actually being competent. In Return from Witch Mountain, Tony is kidnapped after being distracted by Letha. Later on Tia is captured by Sickle only because he snuck up behind her. A common sci-fi trope is making supernatural characters smarter than characters who live on Earth, but what if Victor’s intellect was such that he was able to outwit Tia and Tony at every turn? This would have made him a compelling villain equal to our main characters and given us stronger reason to root for Tia’s success. Victor can still put Tony under mind control and pit his powers against his sister’s, but that could be saved for the climax. In fact, wouldn’t that have been an awesome twist? Wouldn’t it have been more tense to wonder how the siblings will reunite, only for Victor to enact a final plan the audience didn’t see coming? We would then be treated to a battle of the siblings as Tia and Tony are forced to use their powers against each other. And then, just to drive home that strong sibling relationship that the first movie established, Tia could tell Tony to fight his mind control. Of course, this is exactly what she does in the film we got, but it’s ultimately her destroying the device that saves Tony, while Tony is never once able to break through the control. I think it would have been great if Tony, being of a supposed advanced species, showed just a bit more capability in fighting Victor’s control with Tia’s encouragement.
Most unfortunately, this isn’t what we get. Instead, Tony being controlled by Victor for the whole movie offers no twists and no surprises. We, the audience, know that there will be one more “battle” between Tia and Tony, but by the end of the movie it feels cheap and unearned. Also, the way Tia acts just before Tony is freed just highlights the weakened sibling relationship. I’m not sure if this was a fault of direction or something else, but I thought Tia was just a bit too relaxed about almost being crushed to death by her brother. I wasn’t expecting screaming, but I think a bit of desperation would have helped the scene better. Overall, while I appreciate that Tia got to enjoy center focus here, I think Tony was sidelined in a wholly unnecessary way.
For all Tia’s agency, this film still fails the Bechdel test
Megan: While I quite agree with Kevin that it was cool to see Tia taking center stage in this story, it did nothing to help this film pass the Bechdel test. Though the film has two named female characters with speaking roles, Tia and Letha never speak directly to each other. Every other character in the film is male: the kids in the Earthquake Gang, the Goons, Mr. Yokomoto, Victor, Tony, Sickle, Eddie, Uncle Bene…even the goat, Alfred! While Tia gets to save the day by rescuing her brother and preventing a nuclear meltdown, she doesn’t have any female characters to confide in or talk to over the course of the film. By default, her conversations end up being with male characters and frequently about male characters (primarily her brother, Tony). Letha, like Tia, has quite a bit of agency in this film. She’s the one who comes up with a scheme to use Tony’s powers to steal bars of gold from the museum, and she’s clearly not afraid to share that she’s the one bankrolling Victor’s experiments (and expecting a return on her investment, too). While Letha is not exactly best friend material for Tia, being the villain and all, there were still ample opportunities where Letha and Tia could have traded barbs with each other. Perhaps those conversations still wouldn’t have passed the Bechdel test if they primarily centered around Tony, but perhaps they would have. We’ll never know because the filmmakers never gave them the chance.
The toxic masculinity starts young…
Megan: Almost more concerning to me than the lack of female representation in this film was the way the kids in the Earthquake Gang talked about their worldview. When we first meet them, they’re running away from another gang called the Goons. At first, I thought these two groups of kids were playing an elaborate game of cops and robbers and Tia found herself swept up in it, but as the conflict between the two gangs continued, it became clear that these boys were not playing a game but taking this fight very seriously. At first glance it’s pretty comical—these pint-sized boys talking about how their gang is going to run these streets someday. However, it’s also a symptom of a larger problem. Take a look at their exchange with Tia:
DAZZLER: We’re the Earthquake Gang.
MUSCLES: Does that scare you?
TIA: No.
BOYS: Aww
ROCKY: Let’s change our name again. We gotta have a name that scares.
First of all, of course Tia’s not scared—they’re kids, most of them younger and shorter than her, and she has supernatural powers that these kids don’t have. However, the boys’ obsession with being scary and intimidating is a symptom of the American culture’s toxic masculinity. In their minds, the only way to prove you’re a man is to be someone who’s tough and strikes fear in the hearts of others. Being anything less than tough and scary is seen as weak and unmanly.
MUSCLES: I guess you’re like the rest of them. You must’ve heard we’re a nothing gang.
DAZZLER: Yeah, well we ain’t always gonna be nothing.
MUSCLES: Someday we’re gonna be the toughest. Take over this whole territory.
CRUSHER: Someday they’re gonna run when they see us coming down the block.
What’s more, these boys have so linked their identity to their gang that they cannot even imagine not belonging to a gang. Instead they ridicule the very thought.
TIA: It’s just that I’ve got to find my brother.
ROCKY: What gang does he belong to?
TIA: He doesn’t belong to any gang.
BOYS: (snickering)
CRUSHER: I never heard of a guy that never belonged to a gang.
It’s humorously cute in a way that these boys think they’re so tough because they’re in a gang, but how many kids in the real world grow up surrounded by adult gang violence and see that as their only option once they reach adulthood? How many young boys’ only example of manhood is adult men who belong in gangs? I would hope that with the globalization of media today’s kids have a much larger array of options to choose from in forming their identity, but it does make me wonder…how many older films glorified gang life and made it look attractive to young kids who felt they didn’t have other opportunities? While I get that the film was probably trying to convey that kids should stay in school so they have more opportunities in life, it did a lot more “telling” and not enough “showing.” We don’t see that Tony and Tia are smart because of their education—we’re shown that they’re successful because they have superpowers, so it doesn’t quite make sense that the kids in the Earthquake gang would want to go to school based on Tia and Tony’s example. In fact, the way the film portrays these characters, it looks way more fun to be part of the Earthquake gang and running all over Los Angeles instead of being in school. I’m glad the film has Mr. Yokomoto to show these kids there’s more to life than being in a gang, but I don’t know how many kids viewing this film would be convinced that school was better than gang life. The message doesn’t seem to match with the action of the film.
The CGI is noticeable even in this low-resolution picture. That shadow is downright awful.
A sequel in name only
Kevin: Like a couple other films that came before it, Return from Witch Mountain is a sequel that appears to be weirdly unrelated to its predecessor except for its characters. A movie like The Strongest Man in the World is able to do that since it’s primarily a comedy based around over-the-top hijinks and hokey science. But the Witch Mountain franchise has a very clear narrative feel to it, or at least the original movie made it seem so. At the end of the first film we were told that other children like Tia and Tony were out there and those living at Witch Mountain were waiting for them. Jason O’Day took it upon himself to find these children and lead them home. Before watching the sequel, I was expecting that it would touch upon the ending from the first film. I thought Tia and Tony might have decided to seek out Jason and help him. However, this doesn’t happen at all, nor are the events of the last movie even alluded to. Even the movie’s description on Disney Plus makes it seem like a standalone film. Uncle Bene just drops the children off in Los Angeles and has a taxi driver take them to a hotel. But why? What are Tia and Tony doing there? Are they just back to visit? I don’t remember them ever going to L.A. in the first movie, although Uncle Bene does say that the children are there to see what “life in the big city is all about.” I have to say, that’s a bit underwhelming. If there had even been just a throwaway line that they’re there so the citizens of Witch Mountain can better understand Earthlings, that could at least somewhat tie into the first film. Ultimately, I think the sequel would have worked better to properly build on the film that came before it. If you needed this plot to be about a mad genius taking over the mind of one of the children, fine, but I was expecting at any moment that we would find out that one of the other characters were just like Tia and Tony. It would have been interesting if it turned out one of the Earthquake Gang boys had supernatural powers, and thus created a bond between Tia, Tony, and the rest of the cast. This would have at least made the film seem even somewhat related to the first. I have to say that I’m disappointed we didn’t get this, nor got to see Jason again. Also, is it only me, or does it seem like this film didn’t have nearly the same budget as the first? Those CGI effects…oof. Granted, the first movie didn’t have great effects either, but the effects in this movie are really, really bad. It may have been a theatrical film, but it seems like it operated on a television budget.
Megan: I totally agree with Kevin on this sequel not quite living up to my expectations for what a sequel could be. I would’ve liked to see what the kids’ lives were like at Witch Mountain, perhaps seeing them learn to even further master their powers. I wanted to know what happened to Jason and whether or not he was able to find more children like Tia and Tony to reunite them with their waiting families at Witch Mountain. At the very least it would’ve been nice to know why it was that Tony now seemed to have a better handle on his abilities when the first film made it seem like Tia was better at using her powers than Tony was. The antics of the story are fun, but by ignoring the existing source material the story lacks the same richness in character development and world building that we saw in the first film.
It’s still a fun family film
Kevin: I’ve discussed a lot of what I didn’t like about the film, but that was because they were at the focus of my thoughts. At the end of the day, Return from Witch Mountain was fairly enjoyable in spite of its flaws. Tia’s front and center role is a major highlight for sure, and although the boys of the Earthquake Gang are not as endearing as Tony is, I did appreciate what they brought to the film by being Tia’s loyal comrades. Victor and Letha may not be well-written villains, but I also enjoyed the time they were on screen thanks to their strong acting chops and stage presence, which is of course no surprise at all given we’re talking about Christopher Lee and Bette Davis here. Letha as a character was especially fun for just her antics alone anytime she was talking about money. It may not have been a strong sequel, but if you were watching this just by itself it would work (though the title would make you wonder just what Witch Mountain is).