Timecop

I was not to crazy when I saw this film the first time. Wow the second time I found the time travel cool. This film is cool when one looks at the plot twists. Not the greatest of action flicks, but a lot better then most. Watch it twice if you rent it and you will catch a few extra things.

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.

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.

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.

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.