I Miss Van Damme & "Time Cop"

You know, in the 90’s, Jean Claude Van Damme was convinced there was never enough of him in movies. I would say he’s the first to ever have two movies where there are two of him on screen. “Double Impact” & “Time Cop.” The latter is a bit of a cheat, because it’s old Van Damme vs. new Van Damme, and then there’s an intermediate Van Damme that sort of in between two different timelines. Which means, the overlap makes it THREE Van Dammes. Let’s not count the infinite universes that would produce more.

The main issue I have with time travel movies, is…we do have to remain in the present to maintain logic. For instance, the main story has to keep in pace with what’s going on in the now. In “Time Cop” in order for Max (yep, that’s his name in the movie) to remain sullen and angry, his present physical being cannot be altered, even though we see that the present more angrier, broken up Max is still grizzled. His memories don’t carry over from…the resolution of the film. It won’t make any sense any more when you get to the end either. Because when he returns from that bizarr-o world, he should carry the memory of his younger self. But he seems confused about how it changed back to the normal state, sans bad guy (it’s not a spoiler, since you should’ve already seen this gem). What I DON’T care about is these massive logic flaws because Van Damme does the splits twice in this one. For no reason really. One to dodge a stun gun hitting water, the other to prevent a purse snatcher. You could argue the purse snatcher-boot-to-the-face-stretch was to illustrate his ability for the splits later on, I say…put in another split, because I find it impressive for any man to be that flexible.

“Time Cop” is that type of movie where you don’t care. You just have fun. Thinking too much at that point is deadly, because it is about a concept of stopping people from going back in time to make ripples to our history. You could say “Looper” fleshed out the details better, but it’s not as fun as “Time Cop.” Which I think should’ve been a franchise. So many options here. And when was the last time you saw Ron Silver as the villain. I’m sure casting people saw what the rest of the world saw…there’s something really rodent-like with his face. Not sure what it is, other than he could be Ellis’ (from “Die Hard”) brother. He was cold, snakey in “Blue Steel” too. But, at least he got to bang Jamie Lee Curtis. Also, Mia Sara is unbelievably hot in this movie. I didn't think she was that way in "Ferris Bueller..." Annoying actually, but in "Time Cop" you finally get to see tits, which is perfect for this movie.

What can I say about this movie that hasn’t been said over two decades ago? It stands the test of time. Thankfully, they didn’t hop on the grunge wagon (as “The Crow” did…ugh). And, it really set the standard for graphic novel movies in terms of cartoonish villain type world domination type stuff. Incidentally, Ron Silver wanted to be president. So he uses technology to get funding through nefarious means. Though the government pays someone to develop this technology and decides it can get into the wrong hands and now must police it. Consider that that is the core of The Avengers storylines circa 2015. And they wave it around like it was an original thought.