After his true love (Isabel Glasser) falls in a coma, test pilot Daniel McCormick (Mel Gibson) undergoes suspended animation in a military experiment conducted by his friend Harry Finley (George Wendt), supposed to last a year. A series of mishaps result in McCormick's being all but forgotten and, 53 years later, a young boy (Elijah Wood) accidentally frees a confused McCormick, who eventually lives with him and his mother (Jamie Lee Curtis). However, complications arise from the experiment.