Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

A movie with a important underlying outlook on life. This really comes out with a touching performance that is sad and enlightening at the same time. The way he is able to change from a fate of hopelessness that subjects him to a early death. It really takes a extraordinary actor to accomplish what he was able to portray in this movie. When you have a fate that we are destined to agonize over, there is always hope that burns in all our hearts. We need to choose what we do with the precious time we are given. With Jack (Robin Williams) his time is more cherished. Although with the sadness and despair that will be caused, we can always have a chance to make the best of our time. When we are faced with this tragedy we need to make sure we value the small things, like friendships and love so we can escape any dark futures. This funny and sincere more shows important dialogues and a message that makes this a special movie. Jack has a disorder that makes him grow for times faster then a normal person, his brain behaves the same as a child. Having a role as this is very challenging and Robin does well playing it. Jacks parents are afraid of how his classmates will treat him so they home school him. When there is a scene with a great and positive moment from Bill Cosby's character, they decide to put him in school where he makes great friends along with some difficulties. After he makes friends life is going well for him when he has a heartbreak he clutches his heart almost like a heart attack, as we find out his time is running out. He gets to go back to school and seven years later he is 17 which in his time is 68. This was a great Robin Williams movie entertaining and moving. If you enjoy comedy even Robin Williams this should be a must see on your list.

A curiosity coming from Francis Ford Coppola (who also co-produced for Zoetrope) has pregnant Diane Lane going into labor after only two months, delivering a healthy-seeming baby boy (when she pleads to her husband in the delivery room, "It's too soon!", it's rather an understatement). Doctors have never seen another child like this, yet quickly determine the boy has an internal clock which is ahead of itself by four times the average rate, meaning that when Jack is ten-years old he'll look like a man of forty. This peculiar movie gimmick aside, what we really have here is Robin Williams back in grade school. Although this may sound perfectly inexcusable, not to mention somewhat derivative, it isn't a silly movie (at least, not at its core) and has good acting. Williams manages to hold back a bit from his usual barrage of vocal effects and facial expressions, and a few of his scenes are peddled quite softly (as they were in "Awakenings"). Also quite fine are Bill Cosby as Jack's initial tutor and Jennifer Lopez as his schoolteacher. The little boys are way over-the-top, and some of their gross-out talk is just stupid (they hole up in a tree house, equipped with TV, looking at nudie magazines--probably an attempt to mirror grown-ups but it plays sour). Oddly, Coppola can't stop himself from ultimately tugging at the old heartstrings, and not just once but for an entire sequence and an epilogue! I could have done without the "seven years later" bit, but for the most part this is a warm family comedy with a bigger heart than it knows what to do with. ** from ****

You would have thought after HOOK that no one would ever hire Robin Williams again, least of all to play a man child, which in effect is what he also played in HOOK. This time around, Williams plays a boy who suffers from a disease that rapidly ages him, so that by the time he turns 10, he looks 40. And by the time he turns 20, he looks like John Carpenter. No, that's not right. He looks dead. Anyhow, Jack goes to school with the kiddies, and as he ages (in terrible aging makeup), he grows weaker and weaker. It is simply inconceivable that JACK was ever made. Williams is horrible. There is nothing appealing about watching a middle-aged hairy guy sitting behind a kids' classroom desk. And this was made by the director of THE GODFATHER, no less!

Many reviewers have compared this work to Tom Hanks's Big, wherein a young boy wishes he were "big," and the wish is granted. However, this work is the anti-thesis of that work, as an adult portrays a young child, physically, which thrusts Jack into the same venue as Martin Short's "Clifford," which was done some two years prior to this work.That not withstanding, Clifford was a holy terror, while Jack is a mother's dream. While both works require a total suspension of belief in order to enjoy them, Jack is endearing, sweet, sentimental, and entertaining. There is nothing endearing, sweet, or sentimental about Clifford.Jack is born with a genetic disorder which causes him to age 4 years for every 10, thereby causing him to appear as a 40 year old man at the age of 10.Many have bludgeoned Coppola's involvement in such a scheme, citing his prior "masterpiece" works while bemoaning this one. The fans seem to forget that artistic people who do not spread their wings, and plant their feet on strange ground, never grow as individuals and artists.Some found this work "insulting" due to the premise. It is called unintelligent. But not all films are based on intellect, and not all movie-goers care to have to think in order to enjoy a movie. And there is the added benefit of the heartwarming sentiment carried by this work. It did well in the box office, nearly doubling its budget, worldwide, and is generally under-rated here at IMDb (if only mildly so), which says that word of mouth (that this film wasn't as bad as the critics said) carried this film further than the negative reviews would have liked. It rates a 6.2/10 from...the Fiend :.