In the mid-90s, with the spectacular success of the Terminator films fresh on everyone’s minds, the path to making a shitload of money in Tinseltown appeared self-evident; simply combine meat-headed action and abundant explosions with a dubious and half-baked “time travel” premise. Most of these Terminator knockoffs where destined for a home video release, but two of them did make it onto the silver screen: 1993’s Sylvester Stallone-fronted Demolition Man, and 1994’s Timecop, which starred Jean Claude Van Damme, and which remains dazzlingly nonsensical, even by the bewildering standards of this notably convoluted genre. But that doesn’t make it a bad movie, because as always, it proves impossible to watch the doe-eyed, heavily accented Jean Claude and not root for his perfectly formed Belgian backside, goddamnit.
The film’s second scene provides the necessary “scientific background” to the following 90 minutes of hairbrained brawling, as a group of US officials meet in Washington to discuss the unsettling implications of some pencil necked nerd inventing time travel. The suits set up a top-secret program to police the new technology and stop rascals from going back in time to, for example, place big bets on cricket matches that they already know the outcomes of.
Cut to Van Damme as Max Walker, a Metropolitan cop who, it seems, has stolen Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend (Mia Sara). Perhaps in reprisal for this heinous act, Walker is attacked outside his home by cyberpunk-style assailants, who blow up his house and kill poor Mrs. Bueller. We then leap forward to 2004, which looks very much like 1994, except that the cars are encased in low-budget, oversized, poorly constructed cardboard shells. The still-grieving Walker has since become an agent on the time travel police program, and we see him at work, teleporting back to 1929 to prevent some ne’er do well from making a killing on the Wall Street Crash.
Then, however, the plot thickens. Said ne’er do well claims that he was sent back in time by corrupt Senator Aaron McComb (Ron Silver) to collect money for the latter’s presidential bid. Van Damme handily catches the sinister senator red-handed, travelling back to 1994 to investigate a time disturbance which turns out to be 2004 McComb warning 1994 McComb not to sell his stock in a fledgling computer chip firm that will come to dominate the market. A succession of preposterous and convoluted double crosses, plot twists, questionable decisions, and quantum leaps ensue, until we end up with the inevitable final confrontation at the Walker residence on the very same stormy night in 1994 when Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend was killed, sadly not before she had the opportunity to star in Ferris Bueller.
It goes without saying that any attempt to make sense of this dog’s dinner is doomed to failure. How is McComb able to fund his presidential campaign with gold bullion stolen from the 19th century, and why enact a series of elaborate and improbable heists rather than simply going back to 1986 and investing in Microsoft? How do the timecops return from the past to the present, given that the initial trip involves a mid-90s Universal Studios-style motion simulator ride in a most delicate and dangerous procedure? If Max travels back to 1994 to save his wife and unborn child, wouldn’t this disrupt the entire timeline that resulted in him becoming a timecop, thus rendering the alternative future of the final scene virtually impossible?
Such questions are of importance only to precisely the kind of autistic virgins who invented time travel and fucked up Max Walker’s life in the first place. The more relevant question is whether or not Timecop works as time-travel-meets-ass-kicking blockbuster, and the answer is a cautious “yes”. Is it in the same league as the Terminator films? Of course not – the special effects are too ropey, the action less graphic and impactful. Is it even as good as Demolition Man? Again, no; the latter’s narrative simplicity gives it the edge over Timecop’s perplexing plot.
But is it enjoyable on its own merits? Most certainly. Ultimately, it’s not really trying to compete with Terminator: whereas the latter is basically a cyborg slasher film, Timecop is a noirish, darkly humorous cop movie, Max Walker more jaded Deckard than indestructible Arnold. As ever, Van Damme’s French accent and faltering delivery are drawbacks but, also as ever, his physicality makes him seem authentically dangerous, even as he remains a sympathetic underdog. The supporting actors nail it too, and left me wondering why neither the very lovely, very sultry Mia Sara or the phenomenally sociopathic Ron Silver went on to bigger and better things. In an alternative timeline, maybe they did, but that too sounds like the premise for a straight-to-home video knockoff.
Overall rating: * * *