[Michael J.] Fox seems to be trying to get hip in the movies, and he's lost his way here.

Story was originally conceived as an episode of "Tales From the Crypt," and that is perhaps what it should have remained, as the thinness of the conceit shows throughout, painfully so in the first half.

At times the relentless special effects and tangled plotting veer towards visual and narrative overkill, but the final tonal swerve is shocking and effective.

Like a scatter gun hitting everything in sight, the movie has a maddening pace and is all over the place.