Jack [VHS]

Jack is Francis Coppola at his most pointless noodling, looking for the film he wants to make instead of just making it. Robin Williams stars as 10-year-old Jack, a boy with an inexplicable disease that ages him at four times the normal human rate. Kept at home like a contemporary Boo Radley, Jack becomes a neighborhood legend until his parents relent and send him to school. In time, the other kids befriend him and stay loyal as his hyperdevelopment puts a strain on his body and emotions. The idea is sound, but the execution is a bore. The best the script and Coppola can come up with are painfully long scenes in which Williams's character proves himself on the playground and in gross-out contests in a tree house. Coppola fishes around for signs of life and spontaneity in these scenes, but the film is actually best when Jack has to cope with certain feelings in his mature body (such as his attraction to a character played by Fran Drescher) that he isn't prepared for emotionally. Jack would have been a lot better if Coppola had embraced a plan from beginning to end and stuck to it. --Tom Keogh