Timecop (1994)

[ramoyer 0]

They create the technology to go back in time. Who can save the world from an evil Senator who wants to become president? Jean Claude Van Damme.

ramoyer

[LoCo 5]

It's terrible, but it's a fun terrible.

 

Amazingly, we haven't had a Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle yet, have we?

 

And speaking of vehicles, the one issue I want explored in Timecop is where does the stupid "rocket" car go when they go back in time and do they have to get back in it to go back forwards in time? Jean-Claude and Gloria Reuben jump back in time and appear over and fall into the tidal basin of the Potomac River near the Jefferson Memorial. No stupid car. When he comes back forwards in time, he hits a button and walks through the ripple in space, the next scene he's driving back into the future through one of those ripples in the stupid car.

 

Ron Silver is terrifically bad in this movie, especially when he's sharing screen time with himself.

 

When the future Jean-Claude talks to Mia Sara in the mall, why does she ask him, "Who are you?" I mean, shit, it's her husband and he looks a little older, but he doesn't look like a different person.

 

Another fave scene is the dramatic turn when Jean-Claude discovers through a monumentally improbable coincidence his wife's vial of blood behind Gloria Reubens' blood in the hospital. When he furrows his brow a tiny bit and drops the other vial, I'm thinking an Academy Award must be in his future. Then as he fondles the vial, I half expected him to open it up and drink it.

 

That's all from me.

 

Thanks for the great podcast!

[wyldride 285]

To be fair, if you're not aware that time travel exists and you meet someone that's too old to be someone you're familiar with, you are more likely to assume imposter or unknown relative, than you are to assume time traveller. Because husband from the future is, from your perspective, impossible.

[LoCo 5]

To be fair, if you're not aware that time travel exists and you meet someone that's too old to be someone you're familiar with, you are more likely to assume imposter or unknown relative, than you are to assume time traveller. Because husband from the future is, from your perspective, impossible.

 

I choose to be unfair in my anonymous forum postings, so I will let my criticism stand.

 

I applaud your efforts to call me out on my shit, though.

 

Kudos to you!

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

2004 Van Damme had a pretty glorious mullet though, didn't he? I haven't seen this movie in forever, so I don't remember exactly, but was 1994 Mia Sara all "Who are you?" in a legit "who is this stranger before me" way, or was it "Who are you?" in a playful "Oh, you're fuckin' right I know who you are, but God damn, that hair just made you a million times more fuckable in a She's All That, a movie that won't be invented for 5 more years, 'just taking off the glasses to reveal the hotness inside' kind of way" manner?

[Lando 2019]

To be fair, if you're not aware that time travel exists and you meet someone that's too old to be someone you're familiar with, you are more likely to assume imposter or unknown relative, than you are to assume time traveller. Because husband from the future is, from your perspective, impossible.

 

You would probably just think that they were sick

[Lando 2019]

I remember that they state that the agency JCVD works for thinks they have the only known time machine, but they still somehow have the need for a time-travel policing agency.

 

Personally I think Double Impact would be a better one for HDTGM. Both JCVDs react extremely casual to discovering that they have a long-lost twin.

[seanotron 2307]

This and Demolition Man were on tonight, and oh my, they really do need to do these. They are fun-bad, as opposed to please-let-me-die-bad, like Uwe Boll.

[jarrycanada 2483]

is there such a thing as a good Jean Claude Van Damme.movie?

[Lando 2019]

is there such a thing as a good Jean Claude Van Damme.movie?

 

Yes, it's called JCVD

[LoCo 5]

Stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and features Ron "Poor Man's Al Pacino" Silver.

 

The movie is so terrible that it's fun to watch.

 

He travels back in time in a ridiculous looking car accelerated towards a brick wall. He appears in air over a river and falls in. When he returns to the future, he's shown in returning in the same stupid car.

 

Where did the car go between heading back in time and returning??!!

[TonyPSU7 2]

I love this movie! Remember how his children were dressed and spoke in the altered current timeline? Hilarious!! I must say that when it comes to time travel rules that I apply to entertainment (Lost, Back To The Future, stuff like that) I always include the "Same matter can't occupy the same space." I nearly screamed that at the movie screen during Looper. True Story.

[Lando 2019]

I love this movie! Remember how his children were dressed and spoke in the altered current timeline? Hilarious!! I must say that when it comes to time travel rules that I apply to entertainment (Lost, Back To The Future, stuff like that) I always include the "Same matter can't occupy the same space." I nearly screamed that at the movie screen during Looper. True Story.

 

I've heard that addressed in that your body replaces the vast majority of its matter every seven or so years. I'm pulling that from memory, so it might not be quite accurate, but it's true, your body generates new and sheds old cells all the time.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

I love this movie! Remember how his children were dressed and spoke in the altered current timeline? Hilarious!! I must say that when it comes to time travel rules that I apply to entertainment (Lost, Back To The Future, stuff like that) I always include the "Same matter can't occupy the same space." I nearly screamed that at the movie screen during Looper. True Story.

Speaking of "Looper", did anyone else have a big problem with the idea that this "Rainmaker" was actually the bad guy? Oh no, someone's offing a bunch of time-traveling gangsters, but not trying to take over the world or killing off regular law-abiding folks or anything? I'm supposed to feel sorry for Bruce Willis WHY?

[sillstaw 414]

Speaking of "Looper", did anyone else have a big problem with the idea that this "Rainmaker" was actually the bad guy? Oh no, someone's offing a bunch of time-traveling gangsters, but not trying to take over the world or killing off regular law-abiding folks or anything? I'm supposed to feel sorry for Bruce Willis WHY?

 

I got the impression he was a lot more genocidal and insane than just "I'm going to kill loopers." (Incidentally, I think the movie makes it pretty clear that SPOILER: Bruce Willis is really the bad guy. His goal is to kill children because one of them may turn out evil; did you really think the movie was making you root for him to do that?)

[TonyPSU7 2]

Yeah, I definitely have more sympathy for "The Rainmaker" than I do two guys who kill people in a pretty cowardly. At least we understand how The Rainmaker ended up the way that is was.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

 

I got the impression he was a lot more genocidal and insane than just "I'm going to kill loopers." (Incidentally, I think the movie makes it pretty clear that SPOILER: Bruce Willis is really the bad guy. His goal is to kill children because one of them may turn out evil; did you really think the movie was making you root for him to do that?)

 

Sorry, I guess I meant the character in general, Bruce or JGL. But yeah, if they'd given us any indication that the kid went full Akira and wasn't just killing hitmen and gangsters, I may have been more concerned for our "hero".

[Johnny Unusual 525]

 

Oh, it wouldn't be a Van Damme movie without the splits. In underwear, no less.

[thestray 361]

is there such a thing as a good Jean Claude Van Damme.movie?

 

It depends on how you define good?

 

I think a huge chunk of his films succeed at being super entertaining and engaging. I would say yes, he's made a bunch of good movies.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

 

It depends on how you define good?

 

I think a huge chunk of his films succeed at being super entertaining and engaging. I would say yes, he's made a bunch of good movies.

I HIGHLY recommend the two most recent "Universal Soldier" films, "Regeneration" and "Day of Reckoning" (as well as the first one, but fuck "The Return"...), which were pretty fantastic for being a pair of direct-to-video flicks. Coincidentally, they were both directed by the son of the director of "TimeCop", and they're both quite different from one another in tone as well. I'd like to see that guy direct an "Expendables" flick or something.

[stellamarch16 5]

Sadly enough for JCVD, it was one of his better films of the time and it has to be said that the movie was pretty entertaining and the effects were also pretty cool for the era.

[Snake 165]

I was listening to the CBB episode Tony Macaroni from a couple weeks ago where Nick Kroll noted the fact that we shed 1/2 pound of skin every year. I know all of our blood gets created pretty frequently and our skeletons completely change every cell out every 7 years (http://stemcell.stanford.edu/research/).

 

So in this movie, you can't touch yourself in the past (uhhhh... you know what I mean) because "matter can't occupy the same space at the same time." Isn't that a massive plothole then? I think maybe just some cells in your brain stay the same. This whole movie is bullshit

[jarrycanada 2483]

I hate to admit this but I don’t think I’ve ever watched "Time Cop". or I can't remember if I have. I have it on my PVR but yet I some how didn't make it to that movie on my JCVD adventure tour. Maybe on the next wave...unless my hard drive crashs and I loss all of those cable tv classics..

[Bob Drillboids 181]

Good read: http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/the-movies-of-1994-pondering-the-time-travel-insanity-of-jcvds-timecop/

[the baa detective 64]

You know it's not a good sci-fi movie, when the most memorable scene is JCVD doing a split on the kitchen table.