Zoom

Every once in awhile, I like to see a movie with no redeeming value whatsoever other than it amuses me. I though that Zoom might be one of those movies (remember that I actually really liked Zathura and Sky High, and Zoom appeared from the trailers to be along the same lines). If I'd been, say, 7 or 8 years old, Zoom might have filled the bill.

In Zoom, scientists at Area 52 have detected an inter-dimensional anomaly that they somehow determine is the pending return of the presumed-dead superhero-gone-bad, Concussion (Kevin Zegers). As soon as Dr. Grant (Chevy Chase) is sure Concussion is on his way back, General Larraby (Rip Torn) determines to resurrect the Zenith Project. To that end, he sends psychologist Marsha Holloway (Courteney Cox) to pick up Jack Shepard (Tim Allen), formerly known as Captain Zoom. Unfortunately, Shepard is now an auto mechanic with limited (at best) powers, and he's not particularly inclined to help the scientists who made his childhood such a misery.

But money overcomes principle and convinces Jack to return to the Zenith Project if only on a temporary basis; soon after that, a variety of children — all of whom have some unusual power or another — arrive for the group's consideration. Tucker Williams (Spencer Breslin) is able to make various parts of his body grow to enormous proportions. Summer Jones (Kate Mara) can manipulate gravity. Dylan West (Michael Cassidy) is able to make himself invisible. And Cindy Collins (Ryan Newman) is a little girl with big strength. All are, however, almost as dysfunctional in their own way as is Jack.

Jack may have agreed to stay at Area 52 for the Zenith Project, but he's not particularly inclined to do much more than that. The children, meanwhile, aren't happy to be held prisoner and to be repeatedly tested without being told what's going on. Dr. Holloway tries to do her best, but she has little success with either the children or Jack himself. Meanwhile, General Larraby is about to take more extreme measures if progress isn't made in the immediate future.

Will the new Zenith Team be ready before Concussion arrives? Will Jack help them? Will Dr. Holloway come clean about her feelings? Or will General Larraby foil everybody's plans as he focuses solely on his own agenda?

Tim Allen can be very good (ever seen him do his uncensored stand-up routine?) or considerably less so (let's not talk about Christmas with the Kranks, okay?). In Zoom, he's somewhere in between. Courteney Cox, meanwhile, is entirely over the top. Her physical comedy is extreme, and her acting is hammy at best. But given the subject matter and the entirely trite story, it actually works. The child actors are all okay with Ryan Newman considerably better than that, but Chevy Chase and Rip Torn are just silly as is the script. (It's interesting to note that two of the actors here — Kevin Zegers and Kate Mara — were in a couple of last year's most critically acclaimed films, Transamerica and Brokeback Mountain, respectively. Maybe they wanted a break from more serious fare.)

Zoom reminded me a lot of old Saturday morning TV fare. Everything was exaggerated, including the bad special effects. There were moral lessons overtly hammered home amidst all of the silliness. And everybody seemed to be mugging for a particularly juvenile audience. I don't know that those are bad things if that's the age group you're aiming at. I frankly wouldn't suggest that other age groups bother with Zoom, but I suspect the average six year-old might actually be glad that he or she went.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Zoom is rated PG for "brief rude humor, language, and mild action." The rude humor here is actually aimed squarely at young kids who think such things as fart and snot jokes are funny. If that's not a problem for you or your kids, well, then, Zoom won't be a problem, either. Really small kids won't be able to follow the plot (despite the fact it's a fairly simple one), but those of about age 5 and up will probably have a good time without having to suffer any truly objectionable material. Fair warning, though: Anybody older than, say, ten is going to think that Zoom is just plain stupid.