Jimmy, the Boy Wonder (1966)
** (out of 4)
Jimmy (Dennis Jones) doesn't want to get out of bed on the first day of school so he wishes that time would just stop. And wouldn't ya know, once every thousand years time can stop thanks to a magical clock. However, the evil Mr. Fig plans to use this time to take over the world so Jimmy must try and get a magical fairy to help him start the clock back up.
Director Herschell Gordon Lewis will always be remembered for his gore films like TWO THOUSAND MANIACS and BLOOD FEAST. I guess, after you get past them, you may also enjoy some of his early nudie pictures. After that, well, he also made several movies for children and these here aren't as easy to enjoy. I will say that JIMMY, THE BOY WONDER is without a doubt the strangest of Lewis' children movies and perhaps also the most entertaining.
With that said,thi sisn't one of those films where adults and children can watch it together. There's no question that Lewis made his children movies to be enjoyed by children only. The same low-budgets that you saw in all of his movies are here and in all honesty it's just so weird that some adults might find themselves enjoying it. The performances are all bad like you'd expect and you could argue that the animated sequence in the middle of the film was completely useless.
With all of that said, the entire story and concept are just so weird that the film remains somewhat entertaining in its short 69-minute running time. It's doubtful too many people are going to get any sort of entertainment out of this so it's certainly for fans of the director only.