Review of Timecop (1994) by Sam E — 02 Apr 2011

Pretty good movie. But, like most Van Damme movies, it suffers from some bad acting that seems more fit for a low-budget Christian film (no offense, my fellow Christian brothers and sisters... but we can't act very well ;-). But some great action, and the whole final sequence seriously had my heart raising and my palms sweating.

Of course it had to have the completely unnecessary obligatory sex scene that didn't add anything to the film.

And like just about all time travel movies, it doesn't hold up well to temporal logistics. They tend to pick and choose what past alterations instantaneously affect the future. For instance, Ron Silver's character goes back in time to meet himself. When Van Damme kicks the Past Ron Silver's face gashing it deeply, a scar forms on the Future Ron Silver's face instantaneously. Fine and good. It is also established that (duh) killing Past Character will instantly eliminate Future Character, even when they are in the same time together. Fine and good. So instantaneous changes. However... when Van Damme goes into the past and changes some things in his timeline, he is unsure whether they actually worked until he goes back to the future and to his home to find that the changes did indeed occur. This doesn't seem to keep continuity with the idea of instanteous changes. Wouldn't Van Damme instanteously have new memories of the changes working? One could argue that, while he is timetraveling he is not affected by changes... But then why did the wound that Past Ron Silver received instanteously show up on Future Ron Silver's face?

This is where the movie "Frequency", I feel, excels. In that, as soon as his Dad chooses the correct way out of the burning building, the son's mind is flooded with new memories of the dad being present in his life (the only thing is that, if we were being completely accurate, Jim Caviezel's character would only remember the altered timeline, not both the original AND the altered).

ANNNNYway, fun movie, some great action. Overall I'd probably watch it again.