Review: Timecop

In 1994, an American governmental briefing reveals that time-travel is now possible, and a new police force of ‘Timecops’ are created to make sure no one steps on any butterflies or lets things get out of hand. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays one such law enforcement agent, whose wife (a briefly naked Mia Sara) gets killed by unknown assailants. Ten years later, Van Damme is still a faithful officer of the law, and he currently has his sights set on Senator Ron Silver, who has Presidential hopes. Van Damme doesn’t trust this guy at all, accusing him of using time-travel for his own personal and illegal gain. Bruce McGill plays Van Damme’s boss and friend, whilst Gloria Reuben turns up as an IA officer.

This 1994 time-travel action movie from genre director/cinematographer Peter Hyams (“Capricorn One”, “Outland”, “Sudden Death”) was one of JCVD’s biggest hits, and even earned some positive reviews. I’ve always found it a bit of a disappointment, and on what is probably my third viewing that’s pretty much how I still feel. There’s some fun here in this Dark Horse comics adaptation, but problems too. A kind of pulpy mixture of “Highlander”, “Stargate”, and “Demolition Man”, the best thing in the whole movie is the incredibly sleazy bad guy turn by the dependable, late Ron Silver. Otherwise, I think this peaks with its admittedly brilliant opening scene of ye olde highway robbery with ye futuristic weaponry. It’s fun, the kind of fun the rest of the film doesn’t quite live up to.

5 minutes in and the concept of time travel is being brought up in a White House briefing, the kind of sloppy storytelling that bugs me on every viewing. The set-up, or more precisely the lack of one, is the film’s biggest problem and it irked me throughout. Scripted by one of the comic’s creators Mark Verheiden (A TV writer who wrote the story/comic for “The Mask”, of all things) himself, it’s very sketchily drawn and initially quite confusing to the point where I never quite got into this like I wanted to. I did love the idea that all of this time-travelling is so crazy and out of control because bad guys are doing it for their own criminal gain. No one’s doing anything so outrageous that it dramatically affects the course of history/future, but crimes are definitely being committed. So that’s where the timecops come in to catch the bad guys. It’s like  “Demolition Man”, only not nearly as good. I did appreciate that the filmmakers point out the notion that you should never encounter a version of yourself. However, they end up dealing with the issue anyway, even whilst still pointing out that it isn’t an ideal thing to have happen. I get it, but I’d prefer it if films would simply agree that it’s impossible, and never bother playing with the idea at all. I guess then that time travel itself is pretty impossible too, but that trope has always bugged the hell out of me (It’s one of the main reasons I greatly disliked the popular “Looper”). I have to say that even for 1994, the blue screen work is a dud, and the music score by the usually reliable Mark Isham (“The Hitcher”, “Point Break”) is one of the most terribly insistent scores you’ll ever hear. It’s truly aggravating from a man who should- and does- know better. I also regret the filmmakers setting some of it in the ‘future’ of 2004 (not to mention the ‘present’ of 1994), a very common pitfall in futuristic films. Say what you will about “Barbarella” (I love it), but the 1968 film – and it’s preceding comic strip- was smart enough to set itself in the very distant future of 40,000. Yeah, it’s very 60s in its depiction of that future, but still…that’s a long, long way off, maybe we’ll be on a 60s kick again by that time. One very bad bit of 1994 CGI dates the film quite horribly to 1994, sadly. That’s some crappy “Lawnmower Man” shit right there, y’all. However, the actual time travel FX are actually pretty good, especially for 1994.

Jean-Claude Van Damme really only improved as an actor after he had already hit rock-bottom, but this is one of his better pre-rock-bottom turns. Hell, he’s no better or worse than co-star Mia Sara (who looks as gorgeous in 1994 as she did in 1986, I must say), whose character is sadly pretty damn useless. Physically he’s in good form, still kicking and doing the splits. I’m glad he incorporated some of that within all the futuristic guns and so forth, because it’s his thing. That’s what you want to see JCVD doing. He also gets one great line of dialogue in reference to a character recalling their ‘first time’ and how disappointing it was. Bruce McGill steals his every scene as JCVD’s boss and friend, whilst Gloria Reuben is as distractingly bland as she has been throughout her entire career. Her character is a miscalculation, entering the film a bit too late to really work, I think. It’s really Ron Silver you’re gonna remember here, he’s at his absolute oily best for a guy who, by all reports I’ve read, was actually a really nice guy in real-life. Hell of an actor then, it must be said because he always delivered the goods as a villain. That said, he too is a victim of the script/structure, because he is kept off-screen for too long stretches early on.

A shame, I really like some of this but it has been so sloppily handled that you can’t help but wind up disappointed. It surprises me because Hyams is a fairly reliable genre hand, if unremarkable. Just shy of a recommendation, but Ron Silver is outstandingly oily.

Rating: C+