Timecop (1994)

the audience applauded

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

A lot of fun.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Timecop is a really, really fun time. I haven't dealved too deep into the Van Damme filmography but I'm not sure if you'll find many better than these (although I do love Bloodsport). This one's chalk full of good action scenes with memorable deaths (I'm looking at you electrocution guy!). The acting by Van Damme leaves a lot to be desired as usual but that's not why we're here. We're here for spinning kicks and fantastic hair and we get all of that that we can handle! I love the house explosion scene, very well done. It is too bad though we don't get more of Mia Sara. She's one of the better actors in this one, alongside Bruce McGill and Ron Silver. Very good performance by Silver who plays the weaselly, corrupt politician perfectly. My one complaint though for this one is that we don't jump around in time more. We go back to the 90's a few times but it would have been nice to see the Depression era again or the Civil War or really anything older. Everything else felt too close together. Besides thus, a very enjoyable, harmless action movie that has some good fight scenes and bad one liners. I still don't get the time traveling car's function and why they don't need it to get back or the whole time travel paradox thing but hey, nothing's perfect!

In 1994, the year of the film's release, time travel became a reality and a secret police unit, the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC), is formed to prevent people travelling back in time and changing history. Up and coming senator Aaron McComb agrees to oversee the project. Policeman Max Walker has been offered a job a TEC but on the night he plans to tell his wife their house is attacked by people intent on killing him; he survives but his wife is killed.Moving forward to 2004 and Walker is an established TimeCop whose latest mission sees him chasing down his former partner who has gone back to 1929 to buy dirt cheap stock after the Wall Street crash that he knows will be worth a fortune in the present. He isn't working for himself though; he says that he is employed by McComb but he'll die before he testifies. Walker is now determined to stop McComb, who is in the running for the presidency. It won't be easy though; he doesn't know who he can trust and he is up against somebody who can go back in time repeatedly eliminate those who pose a threat to him.Like most time travel dramas it is best not to think too much about the effects it would have and just accept the rules as stated in the film. The story is relatively simple, we know from early on that McComb is the villain and while there are a couple of twists they aren't a total surprise. None of this matters though as it is mostly about the action which is plentiful and exciting. Jean-Claude Van Damme might not appear on many people's lists of greatest actors but he is ideally suited to the role of Walker; he does the action scenes with ease and manages to bring some wit to the character. Ron Silver does an impressive job as McComb keeping him just the right side of becoming a pantomime villain. Overall I wouldn't say this is a great film but it is pretty good; I'd certainly recommend it to fans of action and science fiction.

And here we have yet another Van Damme film from his height of Hollywood fame. After the global success of UNIVERSAL SOLDIER in 1992 (not a bad little flick, but avoid the sequel like the plague), the Muscles from Brussels decided to make another science fiction film. And, like his previous experiment in futuristic themes, TIMECOP is flawed. After all, it's a film dealing with time travel, and, as the writers of any time travel film or programme soon find out, its a head scratching theme from the start, and paradoxes soon turn up by the dozen. To help take our mind off the flimsy, and sometimes contrived, plot, there are a number of fight sequences (as to be expected from every Van Damme film ever made) which keep the attention as always, and one gob-smacking bit of CGI work.The most impressive computer effect here is where a man's arm is frozen and then kicked off by Van Damme, shattering into a million pieces. Other than that there are the usual assorted bruisings, beatings, whippings, and beltings with Van Damme kicking people in the face as his preferred tactic (whereas Seagal likes to break people's arms, and Schwarzenegger just shoots them). Mia Sara has the thankless role of Van Damme's murdered wife and finds yet more reasons to take her top off as often as possible, while the ever-reliable Ron Silver puts in a thoroughly slimy and totally villainous performance as a corrupt senator, who meets his end when his two selves (present and future) touch, turning him literally into a glob of goo - sadly, it has to be said, this effect isn't what it could have been.What I disliked about TIMECOP is how cheesy it is. While cheesiness is sometimes an easing factor when watching bad '80s horror films, here it just seems embarrassing. In order to travel back to the past, Van Damme and co. must climb inside a BACK TO THE FUTURE-inspired pod car which then races off down a chute. Unfortunately, this "pod" as it appears to be, looks like it's made of cheap plastic and has a tiny little gas flame popping out of the back to simulate the powerful drive of the vehicle - except it looks just like a silly little gas flame. On top of this, the various baddies all have ridiculous '80s costumes on, seemingly left from a previous Van Damme flick entitled CYBORG.To add to the mainstream appeal, there's a heck of a lot of nudity and explicit sexual content too, much more than the brief instances in most Van Damme films. And what's up with Van Damme's permed hairdo, which makes him look like a sissy? Along with this and the fact that he has to do the splits as much as humanly possible, it just makes him look like a poseur. On the lighting side the ending is far too dark and we don't get much of a chance to see Van Damme taking out the bad chaps. There are the expected bad wisecracks, good characters who turn bad, an inventive death or two (two soldiers are suddenly ignited in the flames of a pod car) and plenty more reasons to keep watching. And If you can get over the silly contraptions, contrived set-ups and ridiculous appearances of the villains, then you might just find yourself enjoying this slick piece of nonsense. After all, time travel is invariably interesting in whatever form it takes.

A cohesive story line, a well-developed plot, and an often naked Jean-Claude Van Damm; well, I guess one for three isn't a total waste. Actually, it almost is when the one achieved you could find copies of in a magazine and hardly need to watch a film to see. I had high hopes for Timecop based on friends who spoke excitedly of the film. Not knowing what to expect, having never seen a Van Damm flick, I took their word for it; and yes, I am evaluating my friendships. What could have been a fun innovative story line turned out to be a forgettable disappointment that is Timecop.Our story begins, just for moments, in the familiar old west as we see a time traveler vaporize union soldiers transporting gold, which gives us a hint of just how long this time traveling device has been in effect. Obviously time travel has been perfected and used however a society sees fit. That's where our hero comes in, working for a security agency who exploits time travel to go back in time and prevent crimes from being committed. Criminals have become adept in their illegal conquests and often use time travel to alter the time line to further enhance their criminal activity. When Walker (Van Damm) is told by a former co-worker that the Senator (Ron Silver) in charge of the Time Enforcement Commission is abusing power and time travel for his own game, he begins keeping an eye on him. One evening, after a night in with his wife, and just before she tells him some big news, Melissa (Mia Sara) Walker is called away to work and upon him heading out, his wife is killed, and his house bombed to the ground. Spending the next 10 years grieving, and watching Senator McComb, Walker attempts to arrange the perfect plan to thwart his wife's killing and save the future.Where does one begin with a critique for this film? For one thing, the movie's established method of time travel is heavily flawed. In this film's world, one cannot explore the future because it hasn't happened yet, characters can only travel into the past. The problem with this is, however, that once the individual leaves their present for the past, the present becomes the future. Since the present turns into the future, this should mean that once the individual is in the past, they would have no way to return to their present. Another problem with the film is molecular biology. According to the plot, the same matter cannot occupy the same space-which becomes very important later in the film. The problem is, even the same person from two different dimensions of time, is not composed of the same matter they were years in the past. The human body is largely made up of water, which is constantly replaced, cell repair that is continuously taking place, with the functioning of the human body there would exist none of the same matter creating an obvious plot hole. Anyway, enough plot holes in the film to make it look like one of the walls shot up on screen, I surely won't be seeing it again anytime soon.I'm not sure who to recommend this film to. I'm sure action fans will like it, if they have a bent for sci-fi works as well. Fans of Jean-Claude Van Damm would certainly find the film enjoyable. There is always a suspension of disbelief that goes along with watching a film; Timecop requires not just a suspension of disbelief, but a suspension of memory and intelligence as well. It's difficult for one to keep up with a film that is constantly changing its own premise, and that is not an exercise I wish to perfect.