SUSPENDS ACTIVITY, DISBELIEF.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

TIME, AS YOU might suspect from the ad campaign, is repeatedly frozen in the adventure comedy ``Clockstoppers,'' permitting the film's 17-year-old hero to do what 17-year-old heroes do: charm the girl, reconcile with his parents and save the world. Now if only someone could figure out how to suspend the irritating music.

A pushy, guitar-driven score accompanies every chase and action scene like a swarm of locusts pursuing a garbage truck down a bad stretch of road.

Noisiness aside, ``Clockstoppers'' is a harmless and generally entertaining bit of fluff. Its fresh-faced - and acne-free - teen heroes are appealing in a nonpatronizing way. The script has some ``let's suppose'' fun with a concept based on principles of - of all things - physics. French Stewart as a brilliant scientist with a fondness for the word ``dude'' doesn't scale Mount Over-the-Top and former ``Star Trek: Next Generation'' regular Jonathan Frakes proves he can handle a directorial assignment in which cast members don't wear red spandex (although at one point, the movie's ingenue does utter the phrase ``Make it so, No. 1.'' Clearly some habits die hard.)

The screenplay by Rob Hedden, J. David Stem and David N. Weiss won't win any originality contests. Then again, the filmmakers are gearing this toward an audience that hasn't seen this scenario played out dozens of times before. We're talking about the kind of moviegoers who might actually believe a handsome hero could emerge from this kind of trouble unblemished.

That would be Zak Gibbs (played by Jesse Bradford), a good-hearted, car- coveting teen whose father, George (Robin Thomas), rides him more than he listens. Dad's a genius physicist who has more time for his students than for his son. One of said students, a '60s-era protege named Dopler (``3rd Rock From the Sun's'' Stewart) is working on the perfection of a concept called ``hypertime.'' Basically, you push a button on a cheap-looking digital watch, and your molecular structure speeds up to such an astonishing rate that everybody who isn't in hypertime is essentially frozen. Meaning someone could walk around jumping lines at Disneyland and groping the Laker Girls - or robbing banks and planting bombs without fear of being detected.

Henry Gates (Michael Biehn), the evil head of Quantum Laboratories, has just such nefarious thoughts rattling around his brain, and he's got Dopler imprisoned in hypertime working out the machine's flaws. But Dopler has sent one of the watches to his old mentor, Professor Gibbs. The baddies head out to get the watch back, by which time it has found its way into the hands of Zak and his dishy school chum Francesca (Paula Garces).

Chases ensue. More than one person can be in hypertime at the same time, so Zak goes tearing down the street past frozen cars. A person gets taken out of hypertime by being blasted by a snowball of liquid nitrogen. Oh, and the longer you stay in hypertime, the more prone you may be to premature aging.

As it is, the action moves, and there's nothing especially objectionable. I do, however, raise an eyebrow at the multicultural agenda of a movie where the two flunkies pursuing our white hero are a black man and an Asian woman. Guess Zak's Venezuelan girlfriend is supposed to help balance the scales.

CLOCKSTOPPERS - Three stars

(Rated PG: action violence and some language

Starring: Jesse Bradford, Paula Garces, French Stewart

Director: Jonathan Frakes.

Running time: 1 hr. 32 min.

Playing: Wide release.