2002
Rated: PG for action violence and mild language.
Genre: Science Fiction/ Fantasy and comedy
Directed By: Jonathan Frakes
Running Time:
Review by: Felix Vasquez Jr.
Review Date:
DVD Features:
Trailer - 1. Theatrical
Featurette - 1. Behind-the-Scenes (11 mins)
Promotional Spots (4)
Music Videos - 1. Smash Mouth - "Holiday in My Head"
2. Lil' J - "It's the Weekend"
Interactive Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Selection
If you like this, try: Back to the future, The time machine
CLOCK STOPPERS

 

Jesse Bradford (Bring it on, Swimfan) plays Zak Gibbs, a young skateboarder who scavenges for old antiques to sell on the internet. His father is a prominent scientist who creates a top-secret watch that enables time to slow down, putting the wearer in immense speeds. The only problem is, the device increases aging in the wearer. Zak accidentally discovers the watch and discovers its magical abilities. Now, a top secret agency bent on seizing the watch and are hunting Zak. With the help of his friends, Zak must hide the watch from the agency and run for his life hoping the device won't fall into their hands.

The movie is actually very dazzling considering this lightweight Science fiction movie is heavily targeted at young kids. Jesse Bradford who was charming in "Bring it on" gives a lot of likeable aspects to his character in this movie. He's s pretty good actor with a lot of leading man qualities, would he ever choose an adult movie. The film within itself is thin on the plotline and or depth on any of the characters but its a lot of fun to look at, with often lots of bright colors and heavy neon tones to keep kids interested all the way through. A lot of the special-effects scenes are very dazzling and cool, especially when Bradford's character and Garces character discover the device for the first time and freeze everything discovering the wonders of the device.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't bring much to the table for the older viewing audience. This gives us a lot of one-dimensional characters to look at expecting us to forget about them while they bombard our eyes with pretty standard special-effects sequences. We have an unfortunate big and unfunny part by French Stewart who plays a scientist helping the kids along their journey. This guy radiates zero and gives absolutely nothing to this movie except giving unfunny antics. The rest of the cast adds very poorly to the movie including Paula Garces who supplies a terrible love interest. The plotline is paper thing, and is often very annoying with little to no action at all. The special-effects scenes are so overblown and bright, its difficult to enjoy them fully. Jonathan Frakes is a pedestrian director who doesn't give any scenes to the audience that might dazzle us except looks like he's reading his style from a textbook.

This is a sub-par and tame action science fiction movie but still enjoyable. Kids will enjoy its kid-friendly action and cool gadgets, but adults, however, won't click with this.