Go to the "Jack" Page

'Jack': Not 'Big' Enough

Hollywood took shellacking at the box office thanks to the Olympics. Now it’s trying to lure us back with "Jack," a formula picture about a boy (Robin Williams) trapped in a man’s body. It’s a pleasant movie, thanks to Williams’s gently comic performance. But it sits in a rather unspectacular niche between modern fairy tale and a disease-of-the-week TV movie. It’s also something of a shock to see that this was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who used to make great movies. So pardon me if I don’t spring out of my starting blocks.

Perhaps you’ve caught the movie’s relentless ad campaign—which has aired almost as frequently as plucky shrimp Kerri Strug taking her final vault with a bum ankle. There he is: a man-size Williams in pajamas, clutching a stuffed toy and standing in the doorway to his parent’s bedroom. When Mom and Dad (Diane Lane and Brian Kerwin) invite their sleepless "kid" into bed, he takes a flying leap into the air and lands like a human bomb between them.

There’s fun to be had here, that’s clear. But the movie’s premise feels overly familiar, in light of "Big" (a much more enjoyable picture), "Vice Versa" and a plethora of adult-turned-child or child-turned-adult comedies.

Jack Powell (Williams) is born fully developed after just 10 weeks gestation. As doctors inform his stunned parents, the boy’s physical development is outpacing normal children at a rate of four to one. Ten years later, Jack (now the equivalent of 40) is fed up with staying at home (shielded by his mother from those teasing children) and private tutoring. With support from his tutor, Mr. Woodruff (Bill Cosby), Jack convinces his parents to let him into the fifth grade.

Big, hairy and manlike, the 10-year-old weathers the experiences—scary and fun—of going to school. Although he has the support of his fifth-grade teacher (Jennifer Lopez), Jack is pretty much on his own among the unabashedly inquisitive and derisive students. He eventually wins a place among his peers, however, when he uses his height to win a basketball game for his class; then, in a tree-house meeting, he seals his social position by eating a most disgusting concoction prepared by his classmates.

"Jack," written by James DeMonaco and Gary Nadeau, doesn’t examine Jack’s affliction too closely, although there is a climactic scene that deals with his rapidly dwindling future. Most of the movie is "fish-out-of-water" antics, as Jack tries to blend in with his tiny colleagues. On one occasion, he’s caught in the double bind of playing an adult: Obliging his pal Louis (Adam Zolotin), Jack pretends to be the school’s new principal and assures Louis’s mother (Fran Drescher) that her son is doing fine in school. Unfortunately, he’s a little too successful. Louis’s mother, a rather lonely, seductive divorcee, finds this taciturn "adult" very attractive.

In the forgiving atmosphere of, say, "family night" in front of the tube, this will prove a diverting rental. There’s little more to "Jack" than that. For my money, the most touching part of the movie is the dedication at the end to Coppola’s son, Gia, who died in a boating accident in the 1980s. This tragedy obviously informed the director’s reasons for making "Jack," which is about the shooting-star existence of a gifted child. And that’s something to take home with you.

JACK (PG-13) — Contains a generous share of boyish crudity, a little bar violence and minor sexual situations.