Dr. Earl Dopler (French Stewart) is forced by Henry Gates (Michael Biehn) to work on a mysterious project. Teenager Zak Gibbs (Jesse Bradford) is scrounging for money to buy a car. His father (Robin Thomas Grossman) is a college professor and his former student Dopler sent him a watch. Zak finds the watch in his father's stuff. He and new girl Francesca (Paula Garcés) discovers that the watch slows down the world until it comes almost to a stop. Meanwhile the NSA is closing down Gates and his research. They're afraid of national security implications. There's also a problem with aging in hypertime. Dopler tells Gates that he sent a watch to Gibbs. Gates is now after the watch.

As a kids spy action movie, it's relatively functional. Jesse Bradford is playing the brash young teenager. He's not funny and he's not particularly likable. He's just the stereotypical self involved teen. It's less flashy than Spy Kids but is still intended for a tween audience. It's stupid at times and at other times, it's a reasonable movie. There is some action and some spraying of liquid nitrogen. It's a relative mixed bag and not recommended for the older teens.

GOOD NEWS - This had a very interesting premise: having time stopped, except for one person wearing a special watch enabling he or she to move around and do anything while everyone else was frozen in time. There were fun special-effects in here, too.

BAD NEWS - The dialog and the humor in here was so stupid, so California-like teeny- bopperish that it was almost impossible to watch the entire film....if you are past the age of 18 or have a brain. It was filled with annoying no-name teen actors and filled with plugs for scuzzy magazines like "Cosmopolitan" and other assorted other soft-sleaze stuff.

OVERALL - An extremely unlikeable, overrated movie unless you from the age of 11-14 and have poor parents as role models.

Clockstoppers is everything I'd hoped for... Action, some comedic moments, good SciFi, great special effects and very decent acting.

A lot of money was spent on this movie for the effects and crew and it shows.

There's been a few negative comments from folks who seem to forget that it is a SciFi movie made for kids and families, intended to be a good story with good effects and offend no one.

Looking at Clockstoppers in that light, it is a big success. Compare it to The Matrix or 2001, and it falls short. No surprise, they weren't meant to compete.

All in all, a formularic "boy meets girl/father and son resolve differences" family movie, combined with state of the art special effects make for a great family movie night.