Ace Alien adventures.

RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN (PG, 98 MINS) 6/10

E.T.s phone home from the Nevada desert in Andy Fickman's special effects-laden reworking of the Disney adventure Escape To Witch Mountain.

Almost 30 years after the original, this slick and sprightly revamp ticks all of the boxes with ruthless efficiency, introducing a dog at the halfway point to increase the ahhh factor for family audiences.

Race To Witch Mountain makes good use of leading man Dwayne Johnson, who copes easily with the physical rigours of his role as a speedy taxi driver, and continues to sharpen his comic timing.

His gung-ho hero greets each ludicrous twist with a withering look of disbelief then gets on with the serious business of fighting an alien bounty hunter, breaking into a top secret government facility and saving the world from destruction.

"You got a death wish?" screeches one unnamed character.

"I drive a cab in Vegas" replies Johnson dryly.

In Race To Witch Mountain Johnson plays Jack, a one-time wheelman for the Mob, who has cleaned up his act since getting out of prison, but is now under intense pressure to return to his criminal ways.

During a daytime patrol of the gambling capital, Jack is shocked to discover two children, siblings Sara (AnnaSophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig), in the back seat of the cab.

They offer him a bundle of cash to drive them to a remote cabin in the desert.

Jack reluctantly obliges and en route, the taxi is almost forced off the road by federal agents under the leadership of Burke (Ciaran Hinds).

Demanding answers from his passengers, Jack learns that Sara and Seth are extra-terrestrials, who have come to Earth to retrieve an artefact that will save their dying planet from destruction and halt an invasion of our third rock from the sun.

Some of the effects are a little workmanlike - notably the fight sequence with the bounty hunter in the desert - but for the most part, director Fickman unleashes computer-generated fury with assurance..