'Race to Witch Mountain'

Here's a tip for parents: If you toss the kids the keys to the spaceship and tell them to "go save Earth," make sure they hook up with former stock car driver Jack Bruno, whose skill behind the wheel will come in handy when they have to outrun the Department of Defense or some other rogue agency of the government. Yes, he's a former felon, and yes, he used to work for the Las Vegas mob, but he's a really nice guy and a lot smarter and more sentimental than the brawn would suggest. Besides, you need a little muscle when you're trying to save the world.

In case you don't live on another planet, hang onto the keys and go with the kids to see "Race to Witch Mountain," which is a fast and furious (yes "fast and furious" in that way) wild ride of a movie in which the good guys are good (some of them really, really good), the bad guys are good (very scary good) and the car chases (around a thousand of them by my count, though it was hard to keep track with all the screeching tires and twisted metal) are pretty spectacular.

The film stars Dwayne Johnson -- who still has steel-cut abs and a wingspan that would shame a 747 though he's left his wrestling days as the Rock behind -- as Jack Bruno, the Vegas cab driver who finds himself with a most unusual fare.

Though Jack is, indeed, smarter than you'd think at first glance, he really should have figured out that the teenage siblings who suddenly appear in his back seat have to be from some other world. I mean they aren't surly, there are no piercings, they never ask him to turn on the radio and they have cash. Lots of it. Come on, Jack, pay attention!

Sara and Seth (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) do have something in common with teenagers everywhere: They don't trust adults. Only after a few narrow escapes on their way to a little spot of nowhere in the Nevada desert that just happens to have an underground labyrinth filled with mysteriously glowing pods, does Jack Bruno, as Sara calls him, begin to figure out there's more at work here than the outrage of his former mob bosses.

Still, it takes some convincing for Jack to buy into the alien thing. Fortunately Sara can levitate objects and Seth can reach through metal so you know it's more than AP classes that make these kids different. But Jack is a tough guy, trying to remake his life, do the right thing -- getting involved with aliens on the run isn't exactly what he had in mind. But he just can't help himself.