The Clock Stoppers
Jenn Smotherman
Clockstoppers is a 2002 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Jonathan Frakes and produced by Gale Anne Hurd and Julia Pistor. The film centers on future tech "Hypertime" devices which speed up the users' molecules, creating the illusion that time has stopped from the perspective of the users. The story follows teenager Zak Gibbs, who accidentally acquires one of these devices and finds himself on the run from agents of the corporation which created them, all of whom wield Hypertime devices themselves. The film stars Jesse Bradford, Paula Garcs, French Stewart, Michael Biehn, Robin Thomas, and Julia Sweeney.
The film was produced by Nickelodeon Movies and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Despite the film receiving mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, it was a box-office success, grossing over $38.8 million against $26 million budget.
The NSA-funded Quantum Tech (QT) Corporation has slated a project to develop Hypertime, a technology which allows the user's molecules to speed up to the point where the world appears in standstill. NSA head Moore ends the project due to the risk of the technology being acquired by hostile powers. QT's CEO Henry Gates plans on using Hypertime to dominate the world, but these plans are now falling apart: The NSA has given him only a weekend before they collect his equipment, his lead scientist Earl Dopler cannot fix a glitch which causes subjects in Hypertime to age rapidly, and after his henchmen prevent Dopler's incognito departure at the airport, Dopler informs Gates that he sent information on Hypertime and a prototype Hypertime wristwatch to his former teacher Dr. George Gibbs in hopes he could find a fix for the glitch.
Gibbs' daughter Kelly accidentally knocks the watch into a box of his son Zak's things. George is away at a convention on applied science, having turned down Zak's appeals to go car shopping with him. Zak repeatedly bombs out with Francesca, the hot new girl at school, first with a condescending offer to show her around and then, after she allows him to help her rake leaves, by bringing a live opossum into her house. However, she is impressed when he shows her the power of the watch, which they use to pull pranks around town, and later help Zak's friend Meeker wins a battle of the DJs contest. At the end of the date, Francesca gives Zak a goodnight kiss.
Gates sends henchmen, armed with Hypertime watches and solid nitrogen guns for putting other Hypertime users back into normal time, to George's house to recover the prototype. While fleeing from them, Zak discovers Dopler tied up in their van and frees him. A chase ensues, with Zak crashing the van into a river, thus disabling the watch. Zak awakens in a hospital and is charged with stealing the van. He gets the watch working just long enough to steal a policeman's uniform, allowing him to evade both the police and Gates's henchmen. QT Corporation contacts national security agencies and portrays Zak, George and Dopler as fugitives. Zak goes on the run with Francesca, locating the hotel that George is staying at. QT reaches George first and captures him to replace Dopler.
Dopler captures Zak and Francesca with a garbage truck. Francesca knocks Dopler out, and she and Zak interrogate Dopler. Dopler reluctantly agrees to help save George. Using components that the three of them steal from the science convention, Dopler mends the broken watch and builds their own set of nitrogen guns.
Zak and Francesca break in. After activating Hypertime, Zak swaps a nonfunctional watch onto his wrist as a backup plan. QT captures Zak and Francesca, confiscates the nonfunctional watch, and throws them in a cell with George. The NSA deadline expires, so Gates puts the whole facility into Hypertime to stop the approaching NSA agents. Using his concealed watch while in Hypertime causes Zak's particles to accelerate to the point of instability, allowing him to pass through the walls of their cell and divert Gates and his henchmen long enough for George to rig a bomb which destroys the machine generating Hypertime. Gates tries to kill Francesca, Zak and George, but Dopler arrives and shoots Gates with nitrogen. The NSA agents take the watches to keep them safe, and arrest Gates and his henchmen. The charges against Zak are dropped.
Dopler uses the machine he was building to reverse the aging effects of Hypertime, but it inadvertently changes him back into a teenager, meaning he will have to live with the Gibbs family for a few years. George lets Zak get the car he wanted. As Zak speeds off in his car with Kelly, Francesca, and Dopler, it is revealed that Zak has not returned the watch and continues to have fun in Hypertime.
The film's director, Jonathan Frakes, later recalled, "That script had been at Paramount a long time, and because of the success of First Contact and Insurrection, Paramount blew the dust off and got a rewrite and we did it at a nice price."[2]
The shot of the accelerated Zak being frozen was done as a green screen composite of three shots: one with Zak actor Jesse Bradford leaping, one with Michael Biehn aiming the nitrogen gun, and one with the scenery and the computer-generated nitrogen stream.[3]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 29% based on 85 reviews, with an average rating of 4.81/10. The website's critics consensus called it "A pleasant diversion for the young teens, but a waste of time for anyone older."[5] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[6] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[7]
My first pair of riding glasses were a pair of Oakley M frames. Thank you Lance Armstrong. I then about five years down the road went with another pair of Oakleys and the model escapes me. Then ended up in a pair of Smiths that I loved. I was recently gifted a pair of Torege Clock stoppers from my In-Law.
I was skeptical at first if I am being honest. I thought man these do not offer much coverage. I have worn these glasses a bunch. I was wrong ! I couldn't believe it. I always tend to wear red/orange/fire mirror lenses for riding. These were blue with white frames. I could not believe the lenses are super clear. The picture is crisp and clean. The frames are light. They are so light in fact I forgot I was wearing them a couple times. The coverage I was originally worried about was a waste of time. The coverage was perfect it offered the perfect amount of breath-ability so they never fogged. These glasses came with a hard case, two extra lenses (grey and yellow), a soft case that is microfiber for cleaning, extra nose guards, and lanyard so they don't fall off.
All in all, I have to say these glasses are impressive. I am blown away especially at the price point. They start at 29.99 so you can't beat that. I am really amped on these glasses they function perfectly. IT also helps me look pretty fly in them. Peep the pic on the gram.
The game's goal is to match the player's clock with the one in the middle a total of three times. The game begins with the smaller, middle clock showing a random time (for example, 3:45). Players must move both of their clock's hands to match the time. The idea is for one of the players to move the small hand while the other moves the big one. When a hand is in the correct position, it snaps into place. Whichever team matches its clock first gets a point. The first team to get three points wins. Characters who earn a point perform their animation for winning a minigame or getting a star rather than their standard happy animation.
As usual, the clock to the left is colored red, while the one to the right is colored blue. The one in the middle, considerably smaller, is colored green. All clocks feature yellow numbers. The setting looks like a kind of old brown town, in which the big cuckoo clocks are located on balconies.
Do you have the quick reflexes needed to stop a clock exactly as time runs out? Will you play it safe or take a risk and try to get the "perfect" stop? Prove to your friends just how fast your reaction time is with Clock Stoppers! Can you become the master of time?
Choose Speed Mode and get one point for stopping the clock under one second. Be careful, the speed of the clock will increase with each successful stop. Don't stop the clock too late or too early or it's GAME OVER!
In an early scene of "Clockstoppers," a student in a college physics class is unable to complete the sentence, "Einstein's Theory of ..." And just as well, too, since any time-manipulation movie has to exist in blissful ignorance of Einstein's theory. Not that it can't be done, at least in the movies. "Clockstoppers" has a new twist: The traveler doesn't travel through time but stays right where he is, and lives faster. This is closer to Einstein's Theory of Amphetamines.
Dr. George Gibbs (Robin Thomas) has invented a way for a subject to live much faster than those around him, so that they seem to stand in place while he whizzes around. He is like the mayfly, which lives a lifetime in a day--and that is precisely the trouble. The system works well, but experimenters age so quickly that they return looking worn and wrinkled, like Keir Dullea in "2001," who checks into that alien bedroom, and doesn't check out. Gibbs needs to iron out a few kinks.
Before he can perfect his discovery, intrigue strikes. His teenage son Zak (Jesse Bradford) is informed by the friendly Dr. Earl Dopler (French Stewart) that Gibbs had been kidnapped into hyperspace by the evil and scheming millionaire Henry Gates. Dopler is named after the Effect. I have no idea how they came up with the name of Gates.
Zak has just met the beautiful Francesca (Paula Garces) a pretty student from Venezuela, at his high school, and they find themselves teamed on a mission to venture into hyperspace, rescue his father, outsmart Gates, and return without becoming senior citizens. (That's if hyperspace is the same place as speeded-up-time-space, and frankly the movie lost me there.) To assist in their mission they use a gun which fires marbles filled with liquid nitrogen, which burst on impact and instantly freeze their targets. That this gun is not fatal is a fact the movie wisely makes no attempt to explain.
c80f0f1006