a5c7b9f00b When the ability to travel through time is perfected, a new type of law enforcement agency is formed. It's called Time Enforcement Commission or TEC. A cop, Max Walker, is assigned to the group. On the day he was chosen, some men attack him and kill his wife. Ten years later Max is still grieving but has become a good agent for the TEC. He tracks down a former co-worker who went into the past to make money. Max brings him back for sentencing but not after telling Max that Senator McComb, the man in charge of TEC, sent him. Max has his eye on McComb. To monitor the illegal use of time travel, the government founds the Time Enforcement Commission, a high-tech police department under Senator Aaron McComb's supervision. However, ten years later, in 2004, the devoted TEC agent, Max Walker, who is still reeling from the untimely and rather mysterious loss of his wife, is summoned to unearth a conspiracy which dates back in time. Will the haunted Timecop use this advanced technology to thwart the evil plans of the megalomaniac who is behind a string of hideous time-crimes? In the end, will Max tamper with the past to right the wrongs, no matter the cost? Jean-Claude made quite a doozy with this one, quite possibly his best film ever. Sure, Lionheart ranks pretty high up there, but this one not only had good special effects, the story was actually respectable. But the downfall of most of Van Damme's movie is the fact he tries to be an actor. If Van Damme just kicked kung-fu butt all the time, his movies would rank up there with the best fo the genre. Anyway, a cool movie and certainly worth watching. A cohesive story line, a well-developed plot, and an often naked Jean-Claude Van Damm; well, I guess one for three isn't a total waste. Actually, it almost is when the one achieved you could find copies of in a magazine and hardly need to watch a film to see. I had high hopes for Timecop based on friends who spoke excitedly of the film. Not knowing what to expect, having never seen a Van Damm flick, I took their word for it; and yes, I am evaluating my friendships. What could have been a fun innovative story line turned out to be a forgettable disappointment that is Timecop.<br/><br/>Our story begins, just for moments, in the familiar old west as we see a time traveler vaporize union soldiers transporting gold, which gives us a hint of just how long this time traveling device has been in effect. Obviously time travel has been perfected and used however a society sees fit. That's where our hero comes in, working for a security agency who exploits time travel to go back in time and prevent crimes from being committed. Criminals have become adept in their illegal conquests and often use time travel to alter the time line to further enhance their criminal activity. When Walker (Van Damm) is told by a former co-worker that the Senator (Ron Silver) in charge of the Time Enforcement Commission is abusing power and time travel for his own game, he begins keeping an eye on him. One evening, after a night in with his wife, and just before she tells him some big news, Melissa (Mia Sara) Walker is called away to work and upon him heading out, his wife is killed, and his house bombed to the ground. Spending the next 10 years grieving, and watching Senator McComb, Walker attempts to arrange the perfect plan to thwart his wife's killing and save the future.<br/><br/>Where does one begin with a critique for this film? For one thing, the movie's established method of time travel is heavily flawed. In this film's world, one cannot explore the future because it hasn't happened yet, characters can only travel into the past. The problem with this is, however, that once the individual leaves their present for the past, the present becomes the future. Since the present turns into the future, this should mean that once the individual is in the past, they would have no way to return to their present. Another problem with the film is molecular biology. According to the plot, the same matter cannot occupy the same space-which becomes very important later in the film. The problem is, even the same person from two different dimensions of time, is not composed of the same matter they were years in the past. The human body is largely made up of water, which is constantly replaced, cell repair that is continuously taking place, with the functioning of the human body there would exist none of the same matter creating an obvious plot hole. Anyway, enough plot holes in the film to make it look like one of the walls shot up on screen, I surely won't be seeing it again anytime soon.<br/><br/>I'm not sure who to recommend this film to. I'm sure action fans will like it, if they have a bent for sci-fi works as well. Fans of Jean-Claude Van Damm would certainly find the film enjoyable. There is always a suspension of disbelief that goes along with watching a film; Timecop requires not just a suspension of disbelief, but a suspension of memory and intelligence as well. It's difficult for one to keep up with a film that is constantly changing its own premise, and that is not an exercise I wish to perfect. Van Damme is compelling only when he takes his clothes off, which he doesn't do often enough here.
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