In 1939 Army Air Corps test pilot Daniel McCormick (Gibson) has a perfect job and a woman he loves. But a tragedy suddenly strikes his love, and Daniel's future is snatched away in an instant. Grief-stricken, Daniel volunteers for a top-secret cryogenics experiment--which accidentally puts him into frozen slumber for more than 50 years. He awakens in 1992, lost and alone. But through friendship with a fatherless young boy (Elijah Wood) and the boy's mother (Lee Curtis), Daniel discovers that time waits for no man, but true love waits forever.