Timecop

This was actually a decent film. If you can get past the gratuitous violence (a virtual requirement for Van Damme films), you might like this movie. Van Damme plays the title character who needs to stop a crooked politician from changing history while trying to decide whether to save his murdered wife. I liked this. Silver is good as the bad guy, and Van Damme is watchable. See it if you get the chance! *** out of ****

This is pretty run-of-the-mill as far as sci-fi goes, and Van-Damme's acting wasn't any better than it was in his other films - contrary to popular opinion - but Peter Hyams' competent direction keeps the thing moving forward at a brisk pace, and Ron Silver makes for a wicked baddie that rivals his work in Blue Steel. If only the action were more exciting. Most of it consists of Walker staying in one position shooting at another guy, and vice-versa until somebody goes down for good. The shootouts lack energy and a sense of life for the most part. The fight scenes are......okay, but nothing that can compete with what I've seen in other actioners from that era. Oh yeah, and what was up with the villain's death scene? That was some frighteningly terrible CGI. I guess they were trying to rival the liquid metal effects in T2 and failed miserably. In fact, the entire finale was way too dark, like pitch black. I remember catching the finale on TV back in the day and noticed it was excessively dark then, too, but Blu-ray doesn't seem to have corrected the problem. Well, flaws aside, this is still one of Van Damme's better films, with some amusing moments here and there.

Timecop is a pretty hilarious movie, and it has all the trademarks of a

Tapert/Raimi film (i.e., the guys who brought you Evil Dead, Hercules,

Xena, Jack of All Trades...). It's definitely a big-screen movie, but they have some fun, even including dialogue that pokes fun at Jean-Claude's at times unintelligible accent. There are some decent martial arts set pieces, they don't spend too long on the time travel aspects (which is about par for the course for the guys who did time travel in Evil Dead, Hercules, and Xena...). Ron Silver makes a suitably sinister villain, but Bruce McGill steals the show as the protagonist's somewhat befuddled but loyal boss. There are the usual holes that accompany any time travel story, and a weird ending. With the feel-good ending, no one seems to realize that Max won't recall the last 10 years of his married life and time raising his kid! Still, it's a pretty good, not too deep, enjoyable movie.

When time travel was developed by a scientist in 1994, there was the need to create the Time Enforcement Commision (TEC) under the control of Senator Aaron McComb (Ron Silver) to protect the past from modifications. The police office Max Walker (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is invited to join the TEC, and when his wife Melissa (Mia Sara) is murdered by strangers, he accepts the invitation to work under the command of Eugene Matuzak (Bruce McGill). In 2004, Walker is assigned to capture his former partner Lyle Atwood (Jason Schombing) that is manipulating the stock market in 1929. Atwood tells that he is working for Senator McComb, who is a powerful politician that is running for president. Atwood prefers to die and does not confess that McComb is a criminal. Now Max knows the truth but McComb is changing the past and Max does not know how stop him.

"Timecop" is a highly entertaining film, despite the clichés and the inconsistencies. Most of the scenes are written to explore Van Damme´s skill with fights. Ron Silver performs his usual villain roleand is very effective. But better of turn your brain off and enjoy "Timecop". My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Timecop - O Guardião do Tempo" ("Timecop - The Guardian of Time")

I love how all reviews complain about the lack of logic in the time travel rules of this movie.

They all live in a time before Tenet.