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| Timecop (June 16/01)
Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as a cop in the newly-formed time travel protection agency. As the movie opens, he witnesses his wife (Mia Sara) killed and his house blown up. Ten years later, he's still working as a timecop, but now he's bitter and (probably) a drunk. His chance for redemption comes, though, when he finds out a senator (Ron Silver, so evil he gives a campaign worker a bloody nose for making a negative comment) is using time travel to fund his campaign for the presidency. Timecop is a lot of fun, so long as you don't think about it too much. By the time the end rolls around, there's at least one huge inconsistency that will probably really irritate you if you spend too much time pondering it - so, don't. Van Damme will never win an Oscar, but for Van Damme, this is a pretty decent performance. He has to (again) play two different people and both are quite dissimilar from one another. And Ron Silver, as the corrupt senator, has never been better. This is the best kind of bad guy: Snide, sarcastic and (as Donald Pleasence might say) pure evil. Peter Hyams, the man behind another of Van Damme's better pictures (Sudden Death), doesn't flinch from showing brutality (as it should be) and offers up a considerably violent movie (I particularly enjoyed the demise of one goon, which saw his arm frozen and then kicked off by Van Damme). This is an action movie the way it should be: Incredibly violent and fast-paced (unlike, say, The Sixth Day, which was brutal without being violent). Timecop is, I suppose, a guilty pleasure. But for a Van Damme movie, you could sure do a lot worse. And hey, isn't it worth it just for the following exchange: Van Damme: Freeze! ***1/2 out of **** © David Nusair 2001 |
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It seems impossible to make a bad movie revolving around time travel. Back to the Future, Frequency... It's a long list of great films, and Timecop is no exception.