“I can’t tell you anything. He’ll send somebody back to wipe out my grandparents. It’ll be like I’ll never existed. My mother, my father, my wife, my kids, my damn cat!”

Justin’s rating: Ironically, this film now becomes a relic of the past

Justin’s review: When I initially saw Timecop in 1994, it was at our college town’s second-run movie theater. My friends and girlfriend went on a Friday night, and I remember coming out of the theater absolutely buzzing with adrenaline and excitement — best movie ever.

OK, maaaaybe we got a little carried away, but Timecop was hecka cool at the time, and it’s still a great trip today.

Based on a Dark Horse comic book series and directed by Peter Hyams (Outland, 2010: The Year We Make Contact), Timecop took the then-familiar time travel premise and added a fun twist by focusing on an organization that polices the new era-hopping technology by making sure that nobody abuses it.

Of course, someone’s hard at work to turn time travel into political and capital gain, and that someone is Ron Silver (AKA “The Guy Who’s Never Ever The Good Guy In Anything”). In the “futuristic” world of 2004, he’s a presidential hopeful senator who pulls strings at the Time Enforcement Commission to wipe out his opponents (before they were born!) and make a ton of money from Civil War gold and 1929 stocks.

Gradually uncovering this conspiracy is Walker, Time Ranger (Jean-Claude Van Damme) along with his fresh-faced partner and the most manly mullet that modern hair extensions can provide. Despite losing his wife (Mia Sara) back in 1994, he’s never abused his position at the TEC to save her (seriously, why not?).

Now in the far-flung year of 2004? Now there’s a rogue senator mucking up the timelines, and if Walker can pull off a two-birds-with-one-time-jump scenario, he’s going to do it. Even if that means doing the splits every occasion he gets.*

For a mid-budget ($27M) flick starring That Kickboxer Guy, Timecop punches well above its weight with a zippy story, intriguing premise, multiple time periods, and cool tech.** Time travel is achieved here by putting people into a pod and then accelerating them, crash test dummies-style, into a wall of technology with the hope that mid-90s CGI will take them where they want to go. And yeah, while the CGI is a little creaky, I consider it part of the aesthetic here (and I think that the shimmery bubble effect when people pop into and out of time periods still looks great).

Ron Silver is a fantastic villain, there’s a good amount of hand-to-hand action, and the whole idea of both bad and good guys changing the past to suit their mission goals continues that exploration that Back to the Future Part II began. I also enjoyed a good streak of humor, which is very much in line with older action flicks.

The ’90s had a lot of Just Plain Fun scifi outings, and this is one that I’d hold higher up on that list. It’s too bad that the direct-to-video sequel didn’t happen earlier and with Van Damme returning.

*It’s a shame that 2004 Walker doesn’t come back to 1994 sporting an iPod and talking about how they need to prevent 9/11. Missed opportunity there.

**OK, the futuristic cars are so dorky and impractical. I’ll grant that.

Al’s rating: This is definitely one that’s worth your time. (See what I did there?)

Al’s review: Is there anyone who doesn’t love Jean Claude Van Damme? I’m going to go ahead and assume the answer is no (LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU SO I’M RIGHT). After exploding into America’s hearts and loins in the eighties, there was only one question on people’s minds in 1994: How would the Muscles from Brussels cope with the complexities of time travel? Would he lead a high-kicking revolution against the Morlocks? Would he make out with his mother at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance? We needed an answer. An answer only Jean Claude could give us. Probably an answer that required subtitles.

In Timecop, Van Damme plays Max Walker, a hard-bitten agent of the Temporal Enforcement Commission (known as the TEC) in the far-off future of 2004. Once happily married to Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend, Max’s life was shattered by a brutal home invasion that resulted in her murder and a curiously gigantic explosion. Now, he lives only to perform his job during office hours and to drink himself to sleep at night. One also assumes he sets aside an hour or two to style his hair because Max is rocking a pretty outstanding helmet here.

On a mission to track down a fellow agent gone rogue, Max travels to 1929, where he finds his target manipulating the stock market to amass money for Senator Aaron McComb, a present-day politician looking to buy his way into the White House. McComb (Ron Silver—remember the guy who got Jed Bartlet reelected in Season 3 of The West Wing? Him.) is not only in charge of the TEC, but, according to the rogue agent, also already has half of the department in his pocket. The news sends Max on a lonely quest to discover the truth and keep the timeline in order. Unfortunately, it only takes one double cross at the wrong moment before he finds himself in a world he doesn’t recognize. Now, Max has just one final chance to travel back to 1994 and set things right.

So, what is there to say about Timecop? Well, first and foremost, it’s worth noting that, for a movie that’s predicated on zipping around in history, there really isn’t a whole lot of time travel going on. The sequence in the 1920s is fun and I really like the brief jump into the Confederate South, but everything else either takes place in 1994, which isn’t long enough ago to feel nostalgic about, or 2004, which looks exactly like 1994 except for their crappy-looking future cars. We don’t even get to see a Back To the Future II-style evil future. Mostly, our hero is just running around in nondescript factories and hospitals and that just kinda sucks.

Also, I find it slightly odd that timecops seem to stroll around in their uniforms when they travel. I suppose you could get away with it in 1994, but what if you have to travel to the old west? Or medieval times? It just seems like they should be visiting a wardrobe department before hopping in their Crash Test Dummy car. And speaking of the car, how do they leave in a car and show up through the portal by themselves? And how do they leave through the portal and show back up in the car?  Until I get an answer, I’m assuming there’s transtemporal valet parking.

Minor quibbles aside, Timecop is actually rather famous in the Van Damme oeuvre for how good it is. I mean, it’s not Gone With the Wind good or even Gone in Sixty Seconds good, but JCVD actually delivered a pretty solid movie in Timecop. It’s got some fairly quotable action-flick dialogue and a likeable, quirky supporting cast, particularly Bruce McGill (Jack Dalton!) as Max’s boss, Matuzak. Even Jean Claude himself turns in a performance that doesn’t rest entirely on his ability to lift his leg over his head. It’s not the best film you’ll see all year (in fact, it probably won’t even be the best film you see all day), but when you get the urge to see a kickboxing Belgian run up walls and do jumping splits in his kitchen, you could do a whole lot worse than this.

Intermission!

• I never before realized that Sam Raimi helped to produce this!
• There was a short-lived Timecop TV series in 1997 that made it nine episodes before being canceled.
• That’s one distracting missing tooth
• The Confederacy can’t stand up to machine guns
• Aww, we can’t kill Hitler for Reasons
• “You’ll like him George, he’s like you except his dorsel fin’s a bit bigger.”
• The clock store reminds me of Back to the Future
• Rollerblading mall thieves were a huge plague in 1994
• The bad guy with the MEGA MULLET
• That’s quite the gratuitous love scene with way too much of JCVD’s butt
• Mini-disc players weren’t the 2004 fad that this movie anticipated
• This film really thought that 2004 would have a lot more futuristic weapons and cars — but CRTs are still pretty popular
• TEC’s got a swift-moving court that has no problem condemning people to death
• 2004 self-driving cars!
• Bad guys love to bully their subordinates by slamming their heads into the sides of the car
• The knife fight is pretty cool, you don’t get those in movies too often
• Why does Walker have a water cooler in his kitchen?
• Walker repeatedly shutting the door in Fielding’s face is funny
• “Looks like safe sex to me.”
• “When a launch goes wrong, they’re the guys who scrape the walls.”
• “If she farts, she’ll get ahead of the pod.”
• The launch sequence is still pretty thrilling, good music and sound effects
• Where does the pod go after the time jump? And how do they get it back?
• “Never interrupt me while I’m talking to myself.”
• The appearance of the scar is a neat moment
• Yeah just toss your future pistol to the ground in 1994 once it runs out of ammo
• The arm freeze/shatter
• “Was I your only friend?”
• CGI death blob!