Clockstoppers

Starring: French Stewart, Jesse Bradford Director: Jonathan Frakes Original UK Premiere: 2002 Dvd Release: 5th May, 2003 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding

Article Index: [Background Info] [DVD Review] [Biographies] [Articles/Resources] [Link To This Article] Looking To Buy? Buy This DVD Here

Clockstoppers is a 2002 film by the Nickelodeon branch of Paramount Pictures. Directed by Jonathan Frakes. Written by Rob Hedden, Andy Hedden, J David Stem & David N Weiss. The NSA funded QT Corporation to develop hypertime. After realizing that such a technology could also be used against the USA, the NSA wants all of the research & equipment packed up & ready for pick up Monday morning. The research is farther along than the NSA expected & Henry Gates, the head of QT, is going to use it to take over the world. He is going to use the technology developed thus far to stretch the weekend into enough time to give a brilliant scientist held hostage to fix the remaining glitch in the technology. But he has to deal with a small group of determined teenagers who have accidentally come in to possession of one of the hypertime watches. Director Jonathan Frakes makes a cameo appearance in this movie. Posters Of Clockstoppers

The idea is attractive: what if you could move so quickly that everybody else would look like they were frozen? You would not be stopping everybody in their place, as in the old Twilight Zone episode, but rather you would be going at living in hyper-time. Dr. George Gibbs has invented a way of making this work & put it in a witch, which ends up in the hands of his teenage son, Zak . Of course, Zak sees this as a great way of impressing the new girl at school, Francesca , but there is also the problem bad people in the employee of millionaire Henry Gate are after Zac for the watch. To make things worse, Zac gets help from Dr. Earl Dopler , who has been trapped in hyper-time & aged by the process, & his father is kidnapped by the bad people.

The movie has one problem, but it is big & ultimately undermines the entire film. Given this incredibly neat premise, script writers Rob Hedden, Andy Hedden, J. David Stem & David N. Weiss fail to exploit the comic potential to its fullest. The guy with the nose ring trying to steal the bicycle gets a nice comeuppance, but everything else is rather lame. Come this with what happens to Jim Careys character in Bruce Almighty, who is given divine powers & knows immediately what is on his things to do list when granted divine powers. We should all have our lists for what we should do if we become a god, can turn invisible, or move at super speed. At least Zacs girlfriend enjoys exploring the sense of wonder over their newfound ability.

Most of Clockstoppers is not about using the hyper-time device but rather about getting control of the it, which means they come up with this great idea & then make it a minor plot device. Maybe the special effects budget was not big enough, but this is a film where the gimmick has to be at the core of the film. Then again, even without big money you should be able to come up with some good routines provided you have the IMAGINATION to think them up in the first place. Besides, thinking through the plot possibilities here was clearly too much. It turns out you do not have to be wearing the watch to be affected, you just have to be touching the person wearing the watch when they turn it on. I might buy warp drive & transporter beams because of what they do to facilitate the telling of a story, but this is too much for me to accept.

Granted, there is one good joke at the expense of director Jonathan Frakes, but even the Nickelodeon age audience is going to figure out that the idea of Clockstoppers is much better than the execution. This is another one of those movies where all the best bits are in the trailer. Too bad the writers could not spend a couple of months in hyper-time coming up with better ways of exploiting their basic premise.

Milton French Stewart is an American actor, best known for his role as Harry Solomon on the 1990s sitcom 3rd Rock From The Sun. Born in Albequerque, New Mexico, Stewart studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts & toured in regional theatre for seven years before breaking into television with a role on the final season of The New WKRP in Cincinnati in 1992. In 1996, he was cast on 3rd Rock From The Sun, which lasted for five seasons, where Stewart was noted for his talents at physical comedy & his characteristic squinting facial expression. He has appeared in a number of minor roles, mainly in situation comedies & comedy films, although he did have major roles in the direct-to-video films Inspector Gadget 2 & Home Alone 4. Stewart married actress Katherine La Nasa in 1998. Posters Of Clockstoppers

Editors Choice: Inspector Gadget 2, Home Alone 4, Clockstoppers, View DVDology

Jesse Bradford was born Jesse Bradford Watrouse on May 28, 1979 in Norwalk, Connecticut. He is an American actor. He began acting at the age of eight months when he appeared in a Q-Tip commercial following into his parents profession as commercial actors. He first appeared on screen as Robert De Niro s son in Falling in Love. Bradford went to high school at Brien McMahon High School where he was also Homecoming King. He went on to Columbia University where he studied film. Bradford has had several notable roles in motion pictures. In Romeo + Juliet, a contemporized version of Shakespeare s play of the same name, he played the role of Balthasar. The movie featured several promising teen actors including Leonardo DiCaprio & Claire Danes & Bradford. In the cult hit Bring It On he played the role of Cliff Pantone, the romantic interest of the lead character, Torrance Shipman, played by Kirsten Dunst. His first lead role was in the movie Clockstoppers. In Swimfan he was also the lead actor, playing the role of Ben Cronin. Posters Of Clockstoppers

Editors Choice: Clockstoppers, Swimfan, Hackers, View DVDology

Jonathan Frakes is a well-known American actor & director who is best known for his portrayal of Commander William Riker in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. First Contact earning him the nickname Two-Takes Frakes. Frakes, originally a psychology major, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Penn State University in the early 1970s & went on to receive his Masters from Harvard. He moved to New York City & became a member of The Impossible Ragtime Theater. In that company Frakes did his first off-Broadway acting in Eugene ONeill s The Hairy Ape. His first Broadway appearance was in Shenandoah. At the same time, he landed a role in the NBC soap opera The Doctors. When his character was dismissed from the soap, Frakes moved to Los Angeles, California & played guest spots in many of the top television shows of the 1970s & 1980s such as The Waltons & Hill Street Blues. The Next Generation. He is married to soap opera actress Genie Francis. The couple now live in London with their son, Jameson & daughter, Elizabeth.   article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki. Posters Of Star Trek

Editors Choice: Star Trek, Thunderbirds, Clockstoppers, Nemesis, The Next Generation, Insurrection, Star Trek 9, Star Trek 8, View DVDology

©2004-2008 DVDArk.co.uk