TIMECOP combines your standard "crusading cop uncovers a ambitious dirty politician whose rise to power must be stopped" with Back To The Future: protagonist must go back in time to fix a mistake, and ends up vastly improving his own family's life in the process.
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| Needed more kicking! |
Jean-Claude Van Damme's acting is as good as Arnold, Chan, Seagal, or Sly. The film was directed by Peter Hyams who directed many quality thrillers in the 1980s: Outland (aka High Noon in space, starring Sean Connery), 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Running Scared, The Presidio, and Narrow Margin. Hyams also acts as director of photography on his directing jobs, a rare feat. The movie looks great, with the exception of some fight scenes apparently shot in complete darkness.
TIMECOP even attempts to address time travel and alternate timelines, and it mostly succeeds, with relatively few plot holes.
The area where TIMECOP falls down, and this is no one's fault, is the very contemporary 1990s costumes, technology, and visual effects. The movie was made in 1994 and set in 2004, but here in 2014, their concept for 2004 was right on (electric cars with computer navigation, for example) but the execution (costumes and props) are laughably dated. When Jean-Claude Van Damme's wife appears at the end of the movie (in 2004) in "mom jeans" and his son's wearing a baggy plaid shirt, I had to laugh.
The "2004" computers included lots of splashy 1990s-style graphics and "interactive" screens. Remember when DVD players were introduced and the DVD features included "interactive menus" -"interactive" was the buzzword of the 1990s?
The visual effects are pure "post-Terminator 2 CGI" crap. The moment when 1994 Ron Silver and 2004 Ron Silver morph/melt into each other, and end up as a red/pink blob on the floor is hilarious.
Stub Hubby Grade: c-minus.