Clockstoppers

This is a good movie to see for all ages! It's funny, and has a good plot to it. The actors are pretty good as well. I think that this movie deserves 4 stars! If you like movies with adventure, comedy, and fun, you should see "Clockstoppers". I encourage everyone out there to see this movie soon.

This movie was great. There were explosions and crashes but nothing worse than regular television. The only concern was the "young love" romance scenes. Too much importance placed on each other to have "just met." Overall though it was good entertainment and kept my kids attention. It gets *******, 7 stars from me because I like family entertainment that the whole family can go to and the adults or the kids don't get bored.

The story of Clockstoppers centers around a very cute teenage boy who is good at a lot of things, extreme bike-riding with lots of incredible tricks, playing a guitar, riding a skateboard, fighting with his sister...

His mom, played by Julia Sweeney of "Saturday Night Live" and "It's Pat" fame is a doting, (and docile) mom but his father, a college professor, is much more involved in his students' lives than in Zak's life. This causes a lot of conflict between them and Zak tries to get his father to understand how he feels. His dad looks guilty but professes that Zak is exaggerating. When he has promised to go with Zak to look at a car that is Zak's heart's desire, his dad suddenly has to go away to help an old student who is having a problem with an invention.

The invention is a wrist watch that can be activated to put the wearer into "hyper-time". After the father leaves, Zak finds the watch and puts it on, thinking it is only a watch. While visiting a girl he has recently met, Zak pushes the button to check the time and voila! Time stops. To the viewer it appears to freeze everyone and everything else, but then you begin to notice that drops of water from the sprinkler are still falling, just falling a millimeter per second; a hummingbird suspended in mid-air is still flapping his wings, but so slowly that you can barely see the movement. However, Zak, and anyone who is touching him when he activates hyper-time is moving at what appears to be a normal speed.

Zak is stunned at first but eventually realizes what has happened and, as a typical teenage boy, proceeds to have some fun with it, along with the girl he wants to impress! Some of the tricks they pull are hysterical and lead you to imagine what you might do if you got ahold of this watch!

Of course, there must be an evil plot behind this somewhere, and we soon learn what that is. This leads to grave danger for Zak, his dad and Zak's new girlfriend and also provides for some fun car chase scenes.

The movie, of course, requires you to suspend disbelief and if you aren't capable of that, skip the movie! Otherwise you are only going to spend the hour criticizing the scientific aspects of "hyper-time" and annoying everyone around you who has some imagination and is having a good time.

The movie is directed by Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander Riker on Star Trek, the Next Generation. He apparently learned a lot during his STNG days and puts it to good use in this science fiction fun-fest. Thanks Number One. You made it so.

I've always been fascinated with the idea of stopping time, so when I saw the trailer, I was really interested in seeing the movie. Anyhow, the movie was actually really cool and had some REALLY cool ideas. I really liked the idea that they weren't actually stopping time, they were just slowing it down REALLY slow.

The main reason I wanted to see the movie was for the special effects and I wasn't let down, the special effects were spectacular and lots of fun.

As far as acting goes, I thought all the actors did a find job. I liked Jesse Bradford, French Stewart, Michael Biehn and last but certainly not least, Paula Garces. I was really impressed with Paula's beauty, she is a quite a beautiful woman and predict a great future for her. I can't wait to see her next project.

As far as story-line goes, I thought it was pretty darn good and rather smart. There were a few things that I could have done without, but I can deal. One part that really struck me as odd was when he (Jess Bradford) was in the bathroom at the hospital and he was trying to get the watch (time-stopper) to work. While he was in the bathroom the bad guys slow down time and come walking into the hospital and suddenly you see Jesse disguised as a cop and then as soon as the baddies walk by Jesse takes off running. I assume he got the watch to work momentarily, but that doesn't really make sense because later in the movie he gives it to French Stewart so he can repair it and get it working again. I just think that one scene could have been explained better and it would have been quite easy to do.

One little movie trivia tid-bit that I noticed in the film was when Francesca and Zak are having fun with the watch and she says "Make it so Number One". That is a reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Captain Picard always said that to Commander Riker (aka Number One). This is interesting, because "Clockstoppers" is directed by Jonathan Frakes, who plays Commander Riker in Star Trek.

I hope you enjoyed the movie as much as I did. It's not a superb sci-fi movie, but it's fun and it's got lots of cool things to look at and some fun ideas. Thanks for reading,

-Chris

and all the scientific mumbo-jumbo, then this movie can be entertaining. I mean, it's about everyone's fantasy, to be able to stop time and do what you are doing while everyone else is frozen. Except in this movie the people really aren't frozen, it is just that the people with the stop watches are able to speed themselves up so it looks like everyone else is standing still. A pretty cool idea, but when the bad guys show up with the special watches, a bunch of plot holes show up. And it was amusing, especially the dance party scene when Zak and Francesa spin their DJ friend around, so in real time it looks like he is a really good dancer.

FINAL VERDICT: A fairly entertaining kids movie. I think 9-13 year olds will like it, plus it isn't a total bore for adults.