Timecop (1994)

Timecop, based on the Dark Horse Comics series, is the one the better Jean-Claude Van Damme movies out there and one of the last to make it in to UK cinemas. The film is directed by Peter Hyams, with whom Van Damme would later go on to make Sudden Death or die hard in a stadium, as it is probably better know.

It’s 1994 and Van Damme plays cop Max Walker. A fairly normal name for a change and far removed from his first appearance in 1984’s Monaco Forever where he was credited as ‘gay karate man’. Walker is happily married to Melissa, played by Mia Sara. He has been offered a job at the recently formed Time Enforcement Agency (TEC), but before he can sign on the dotted line, they are attacked at their home by some mulleted bad guys. After getting shot in the garden, Walker watches as the house, Melissa, and the shocking hair cuts blow up.

Here comes the science. In Timecop, time travel is a reality but you can only go back in time as the future hasn’t yet occurred. You can’t change things whilst your there, so you can’t kill Hitler, for example, and the same matter can’t occupy the same space. Remember this, you can guarantee it will come back at some stage. Don’t worry if you don’t, they remind you a few times.

Back in time now folks as Van Damme tracks down his partner, Lyle Atwood, in 1930’s Wall Street. Walker has obviously come from the future as he is wearing a futuristc police body warmer and sporting a mullet, maybe this means the bad guys from 1994 were also from the future? Atwood is buying up stock cheaply to sell at a profit in the future. There is a fight, cue Van Damme doing the splits and hitting people with sticks, a lot. They go back to 2004 and Atwood tells Walker it was Senator McComb who sent him back, to raise funds for his presidential campaign. Rather than testify and risk McComb erasing his family from history, Atwood keeps quiet and is sentenced to death.

McComb turns up at the TEC and plans to shut down the agency for good. Walker is not happy and he tells his boss Matuzak all about the nasty McComb. He adds that “if I can’t go back and save her then this scumbag isn’t going back to steal money.” Upset, Walker goes home and drinks a bottle of whisky, and watches some home video footage of his wife from 1994. Nothing saucy just her sitting on some grass trying to build a bird table. He then passes out and is awoken by intruders. Some how he took his clothes off before he passing out, so now has to fight in his boxer shorts. This scene is obviously for those Monaco Forever fans out there. There are knives, tazars, and he does the splits again. He knows McComb has sent them but he just can’t prove it.

Back at the office Max is then partnered with internal affairs agent Fielding (Gloria Reuben from ER) and together they go back to 1994 (clearly an important year) and catch McComb in the time travel act. He is briefing his past self on what the future holds, we are again warned about the same matter occupying the same space. Max tries to arrest McComb but Fielding betrays him. They fight and go back to a changed future where Fielding doesn’t exist.

Max comes up with a plan, to go back in time to the enchanted under the sea dance to fix the future. Sorry wrong film, instead he realises that Fielding is still in hospital in 1994, so Max can save the day by bringing her back to the future and prove that McComb is a bad egg. Alternatively he could just stay in 1994, kick some arse, save his wife, and save the day that way.

As a time travel film Timecop holds up well, it’s not too complicated and most people could handle the time line plot, it is more about the action than the science. Acting wise there is a good villain in McComb played by Die Hard’s Ron Silver, Mia Sara best known as Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend does a fine job as Max’s wife. For Van Damme it is business as usual, kicking, slight stubble and an accent, although interestingly in this film there is no explanation of where his accent is from or why he is in America.

As with most science fiction films its vision of the future, in this case 2004, can let it down. In reality it is only really the guns and cars that seem slightly too futuristic for the time. An early scene shows Atwood listening to a mini disc play at his desk in Wall Street, which was a good use of then new technology that was just evolving, although history showed that it never really had its day once the mp3 player was introduced. Van Damme’s voice activated apartment, “TV on, play tape” was not unbelievable, and it did have a widescreen tv on the wall at least.

The film went on to have a Van Damme free sequel and TV show which occasionally stared Bruce Campbell, probably because of the Sam Raimi connection. Raimi produced the film along with Van Damme’s previous film Hard Target.

Despite being a vehicle for Van Damme to do the splits and kick butts, it actually is an enjoyable film if you have 98 minutes to kill. It is possibly wrong marketing that limits it to just Van Damme fans rather than the wider audience that it deserves. Partly the reason I couldn’t convince the missus to watch it.

Buy Timecop on DVD