TCCPhreak 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.

Syl Sir Christopher Lee as the mad scientist and Bette Davis as Cletha play the mad scientist and his business partner in a plot to take over the world and make money. Anthony James plays Sickle, Cletha's nephew and only living relative. One day, they go searching for a perfect location and end up with gold. Sickle has the mad doctor's commands in his ear and he hurts him if he doesn't do exactly what he wants like climbing to the roof of a building in a deserted Los Angeles area. He's about to fall but is saved by Tony, a boy with special abilities. Tony and his sister, Tia, were headed to return home but their cab ran out of gas. The cab driver goes to get gas. Tony sensing trouble tries to stop and saves Sickle's life. Unfortunately, Tony is tagged and taken away. They have other plans for him. It's not a bad film and the special effects are way outdated but the acting isn't bad and the cast does make it worth watching.

Poseidon-3 Following the success of "Escape to Witch Mountain," Disney went to the well once again with this follow-up, three years later. Telekinetic, alien preteens Eisenmann and Richards return to Earth for a "vacation" following the presumably tough job of gathering together all the wayward people from their displaced planet. They haven't even gotten to their hotel yet when Eisenmann foresees an accident involving a man falling from the top of a building. The man (James) is part of a test that scientist Lee is conducting with his sidekick Davis in which people do as they are commanded to do following the implantation of a device behind their ear. Once Lee and Davis see Eisenmann save James through his powers, they decide to kidnap Eisenmann and make him their pawn, allowing them to steal things and extort money from whomever they choose. Richards, left alone in L.A. following the kidnapping, falls in with a gang of misfit kids who hang out in an abandoned house. They try to help her, but ultimately she must take on Lee, Davis and even her own brother in order to stop the crimes. Eisenmann and Richards are surprisingly more mature in the couple of years that separate the two films. Their performances are more assured and they are appealing, the one quibble being that the script separates them throughout nearly all of the running time, thus their considerable chemistry together is not given a full chance to shine. Lee is suitably suave and dangerous as the villain with Davis cackling her way through with somewhat less success. She gets a decent line or two, but mostly doesn't seem fully comfortable in the film. It has to rank as one of her lesser screen showcases. Soo, in his final film appearance before succumbing to esophageal cancer, appears as a beleaguered truant officer attempting to round up the gang of hooky players. The gaggle of kids is a fairly negligible bunch. One is played by Tina Yothers' brother and should be easy to spot. Juttner, whose voice has a shrill quality to it, later appeared in "The Swarm" before quickly ending up out of the biz. Pyle again appears incongruously as the alien uncle of the siblings. This go-round is far more action and effects-oriented than the first film. Some of the action is amusing (such as the silly goings on in a museum) and some of it is even a bit thrilling (some car chases and the adventures of a goat!) One neat stop-motion effect involves the impromptu repair of a wrecked van. There's a notable lack of heart in the piece, however, especially compared to the first movie. It might have been more entertaining had Davis been allowed to go the usual route of being the one in charge rather than a hapless flunky. While not a "great" movie, it has a certain level of entertainment and might even be more accessible to today's kids than the first one thanks to the emphasis on effects and the urban setting. Interestingly, James, who plays Davis' relative here (and chauffeur) played the very creepy driver who drove her over the edge of insanity in "Burnt Offerings" a couple of years prior. Also, the poster for this film was far scarier looking than anything in it, especially the VERY unflattering rendition of Davis!

S Bradford "Escape to Witch Mountain" is not a perfect movie, but has a good plot, well-developed characters, and beautiful scenery. "Return from Witch Mountain", unfortunately, has none of those. In this contrived sequel, Tony and Tia are left to fend for themselves while on vacation in Los Angeles (all the better to save on the budget!), where they become mixed up with a mad scientist (Christopher Lee), his partner (Bette Davis), and various other Disney stock characters. What charms the original had are completely absent from this sequel, which seems to borrow every cliché from the scores of middling-to-bad Disney movies which littered the movie landscape in the 1970s.Much of the dialog is cringe-worthy; you'll actually be embarrassed watching it. You're better off re-watching the original.