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.
