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Clockstoppers
***
Cinema Releases - October 11, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate PG. USA.
94 minutes. Directed by Jonathan Frakes. Written by Rob Hedden, J. David
Stern, David N. Weiss; from a story by Andy Hedden, Rob Hedden, J. David
Stern, David N. Weiss. Starring Jesse Bradford, French Stewart, Paula Garces,
Michael Biehn, Robin Thomas, Garikayi Mutambirwa, Julia Sweeney, Lindze
Letherman.
As a kid, I used to watch a TV show called "Out
of This World". It was about this girl with a human mother and a father from
outer space, who communicated to his daughter through some sort of triangle
lamp on her bedside table. The alien father was endowed with certain magical
powers, so he gave his daughter the ability to freeze time by putting her
index fingers together, and unfreeze it by clapping her hands.
"Clockstoppers" has a premise sort
of like that. It's about this kid, a high school student played by Jesse
Bradford, whose father (Robin Thomas) is a science professor experimenting
with molecular structure. One of the dad's new inventions is a watch that
can speed up the wearer's molecules so much that he or she enters 'hypertime'.
In other words, the wearer moves so fast that he appears invisible to those
around him, and time appears to stand still. Or something like
that.
Thomas ends up getting kidnapped by an evil
billionaire (Michael Biehn), who wants to sell this technology to the military
before his research deadline expires. This leads Bradford on an adventure
to save dad, accompanied by the crazy time-freezin' watch and a Venezuelan
hottie from school (Paula Garces).
I am on record as having been raised on "Back
to the Future" and getting all giggly over the "Spy Kids" movies, so it might
as well be admitted that I get a kick out of this sort of thing. Gadgets,
unlikely ways to play with the linear movement of time and kids getting in
topsy-turvy scientific adventures will usually make me smile. The best scenes
in "Clockstoppers" come before the father's kidnap, when Bradford and Garces
have discovered the watch out of the blue and are simply messing around among
silly special effects. They play practical jokes on a traffic warden by putting
a peeing dog in her car, they get to manipulate water droplets and insects
that seem suspended in mid-air, and there's a scene in which they help a
DJ friend dance in a way that would be physically impossible without the
assistance of invisible time travellers. I'm not sure that last scene makes
sense even under the film's own rules, but what the hey -- it features
breakdancing and the school jerk getting embarrassed, so it's a whole lot
of fun.
When the plot kicks in, and the two teenage leads
have to go on their mission, there are some inventive moments in which our
heroes have to defeat bad guys in possession of the same time-manipulation
advantages, but there are also a few too many tiresome chase sequences, and
the movie's junk science ends up wandering too far from its central
idea.
Still, "Clockstoppers" is light, silly, photographed
with colour and depth, and rather a good time. Even when the action isn't
working, it's a pleasure to watch Jesse Bradford. The guy has something of
John Cusack and Michael J. Fox about him -- he looks cool when playing around
on his bicycle and swinging around corners, and he even amuses us with little
gestures, like when he has to dodge the telephone chord to get through the
kitchen. Put it this way: He's more at ease here than he was in
"Swimfan".
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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