‘Never interrupt me when I’m talking to myself...’
Some days it feels like 1994 wasn’t that long ago. Oasis are the biggest band in the country. Everyone is looking forward to a World Cup in America. The government are incredibly unpopular. Not much has changed! But then you consider the fact that the film Timecop was released in 1994. It really was a different world. The fact that this film exists at all is unlikely enough, and that’s without considering that it grossed $102 million at the box office. Astonishing…
The plot is pretty simple. The clue’s in the name. Agent Max Walker (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a cop who travels back in time to ensure that nobody is abusing the recently invented concept of time travel. Mia Sara, somehow looking identical to how she did in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, despite this being seven years later, plays Walker’s wife, Melissa, while Ron Silver hams it up as generic bad guy, Senator Aaron McComb.
Now that I’ve voyaged through the murky waters of Steven Seagal’s filmography, it feels like the time has come to branch out. I mainly know JCVD from No Retreat, No Surrender; Universal Soldier and Street Fighter, so Timecop, his most financially successful film, feels like a decent jumping-off point. The funny thing is, Timecop is a decent action flick in spite of Van Damme, not because of him. The concept is solid, director Peter Hyams knows his way around a camera (he did direct the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey after all), and Silver makes for a suitably Hans Gruber-esque villain. The issue is that whenever Van Damme is called upon to do anything other than kicking, he falls short. Having said that, I was never bored; it’s always a joy to see Mia Sara in anything (one of my first loves), and the film inexplicably concludes with a wildly inappropriate jaunty number by ’80s college rock band The Smithereens. The film also boasts a lovely (if unconvincing) performance from Bruce McGill as Van Damme’s wisecracking boss, Commander Eugene Matuzak.
While I can’t imagine I’ll ever watch Timecop again, I can’t deny that I found a lot to enjoy in it. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, and they definitely never will again.
