TIMECOP
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ron Silver, Mia Sara. Screenplay: Mark Verheiden. Director: Peter Hyams.
A muscular action hero with a thick accent stars in a science fiction film about traveling into the past to change the future. No, I'm not talking about THE TERMINATOR, although I suspect the similarity is more than coincidental. Jean-Claude Van Damme has labored through several virtually indistinguishable testosterone fests without discovering his breakout hit, so TIMECOP must have seemed like the perfect opportunity. And it will probably do what it was intended to do, expanding Van Damme's audience the way THE TERMINATOR expanded Arnold Schwarzenegger's. It's an energetic film that doesn't skimp on the action, but it suffers from an over-convoluted storyline that pushes the logic meter *way* into the red zone.
Van Damme plays Max Walker, a Washington D.C. cop who is assigned to a unique detail--the Time Enforcement Commission, instituted to prevent abuses of the newly realized technology of time travel. In 2004, Walker learns that a series of time travel "thefts" is connected to the presidential campaign of Aaron McComb (Ron Silver), the U.S. senator whose committee oversees the T.E.C. As Walker follows McComb through time, he finds himself presented with a time-altering temptation of his own--preventing the death of his wife Melissa (Mia Sara) in 1994.
Volumes could be written about the slapdash and ultimately self-contradictory treatment screenwriter Mark Verheiden (who also co-created the comic book on which the film is based) gives to time travel; sometimes it simply seems that he's making things up as he goes along. However, those are not the issues which hamper TIMECOP most. There is more fundamental foolishness, like what exactly the T.E.C. has been doing for ten years when it soon becomes clear that there is only one other time machine in existence besides that which they use themselves. Either there has been an inordinate number of rogue Timecops, or there was a spectacular level of stupidity involved in not destroying the other machine. Of course, this is a government agency we are dealing with. One also wonders why assassins from the future can't be slightly less obtrusive than extras from THE ROAD WARRIOR.
TIMECOP also stumbles with the inclusion of a female partner for Walker, an internal affairs officer named Fielding (Gloria Reuben). She is treated almost as an afterthought, an obligatory woman to occupy the space between Mia Sara's scenes. While Reuben is good working with sketchy material, the character appears too late and disappears too soon to leave any kind of impact on the story. Everything about the Fielding character feels contrived, sloppy and, worst of all, completely unnecessary.
The good news is that TIMECOP tends to work when everyone shuts up and starts fighting. Director Peter Hyams went a little nuts in the editing room, making some of Van Damme's fight scenes look like they were lit with a strobe, but they are mostly creative and well- choreographed; only the final showdown drags on a bit. The special effects are sharp, and the computer-generated snap-back look to the characters' movements through time is inventive and well-handled. The production values are generally impressive, and action fans will not be too disappointed.
The real pleasant surprise of TIMECOP turns out to be the acting of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Yes, that's right, I said acting. Though still sometimes difficult to understand through his Belgian accent, Van Damme is an appealing performer who looks comfortable on screen, something Steven Seagal has yet to accomplish. TIMECOP isn't exactly a demanding film for an actor, but Van Damme shows that he can provide texture, something a bit more substantive than roundhouse kicks. He also gets to work off a suitably nasty villain in Ron Silver, who is perfectly cast, and has a nice chemistry with the too-little-seen Mia Sara. It's too bad TIMECOP often feels bloated and preposterous, because there's a bit of heart lurking beneath the hardware. It's just a bit too uneven to take advantage of its strengths.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 time crimes: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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