Timecop

I thought this was a notch above the normal no-brainer kick-boxer action flicks which star men like Jean-Claude VanDamme, Steven Segal, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, etc. because of the interesting and somewhat complex tale with time travel as the main theme. The story also has some good twists and humor.

THE GOOD - Kudos to the four s's in here: Silver, suspense, special-effects and sound - all of them are very good. There is something about Ron Silver's looks that spell "sleazy and rotten" before he even opens his mouth! When he speaks, his accent and profanity quickly verifies those suspicions. The special- effects - at least when this came out in the mid '90s - were very cool when the time travelers reached their destinations and appear out of this wall of near- transparent plastic. The story can be a bit confusing at times but is fun at most times, especially near the end when doubles of all the characters are on the screen at once

THE BAD - The bad part of the film is the credibility, especially with Silver who plays a politician. No politician, no matter what party or where, would be this much of low-life. In fact, the story is full of unlikable and untrustworthy characters, too many of them. There also is too much Rambo-mentality and the final action goes on way too long. The time travel ange of the story may be intelligent but the dialog in this movie is just plain dumb and too juvenile.

Overall, this is one of the best of a small group of well-done Van Damme movies.

Overall, this is a decent enough 90s action flick with ropey acting, terrible vision of the future, but excellent fight scenes and some superb signs of physical excellence (those gymnast moves are amazing). Its also funny (not always intentionally so; those cars are hilarious) and the pacing is decent. The sci-fi angle is not the strongest, but overall this is a cent 90s action flick.

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.

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 ****