By Chris Snellgrove | Published
For science fiction fans, there is perhaps no more common trope than time travel. From Star Trek to Back to the futurewe’re used to seeing our favorite heroes and villains travel through time to save or threaten everything that has been or will be. This has naturally led to debates among fans about which film used this trope best, but these arguments are pointless because the answer has been staring us in the face for over 30 years. In simple terms, Timecop is the coolest time travel movie ever made, and you can now stream it for free on Tubi.
Timecop Rules
Timecop (adapted from the story of the same name by Mike Richardson and Mark Verheiden published by Dark Horse Comics) focuses on a government agency tasked with preventing crimes involving time travel. Former cop, Agent Max Walker, finds himself caught in a tangled temporal story involving a senator abusing time travel to fund his presidential ambitions. After this senator pulls a Biff Tannen and succeeds in altering the future in his favor, it will take all of Walker’s skills and knowledge to save more than just the world…he must save history itself.
Great performance is the cornerstone of Timecop…Ron Silver (best known for his Emmy-nominated role in The west wing) plays the role of the sleazy senator to manipulate the timeline. Meanwhile, Mia Sara (best known for playing the main character’s love interest in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) plays Max Walker’s wife. Finally, Walker is played by martial arts cinema maestro Jean-Claude Van Damme, whose unique brand of action-schlock chutzpah transforms Timecop into something almost transcendentally strange.
Fortunately, the general public has not found the Timecop too weird once it comes out. The film grossed $101.6 million on a budget of $27 million. While not exactly a blockbuster hit, the film earned enough to spawn a short-lived television adaptation on ABC in 1997. Eventually, we got a direct-to-video movie sequel in 2003, although neither the sequel nor the TV series brought back Van Damme. .
The original Timecop may have impressed at the box office, but it didn’t exactly impress the critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, this film has a critical rating of 42 percent. Generally speaking, critics agreed that the film would appeal to science fiction fans who were able to suspend their disbelief and not ask too many questions about time travel. However, critics mostly agree that the film falls far short of time travel cinematic classics such as James Cameron’s. The terminator.
Watch Timecop
So, moment of truth: why the hell do I recommend you watch Timecopa critically reviled sci-fi film whose imprint on pop culture can be measured in crappy sequels? First of all, despite the arrogance of critics who have historically disdained science fiction, this film’s time travel plot is both clever and compelling. His vision of how humans would inevitably abuse time mechanisms to obtain wealth and power is both understandable and creative, and the film as a whole Really lives up to its entire bonkers premise.
But above all, this film is worth seeing for Jean-Claude Van Damme, who has already starred in action film classics like Blood sport, KickboxerAnd Universal Soldier. He’s not the most emotive or expressive actor, but he makes up for it with a raw physicality that transforms what could be de rigeur cinematic fights into beautiful displays of true martial prowess. Van Damme has always had a special effect with his martial arts skills, and in the high-tech world of Timecop, his brand of killer kung fu stands out all the more thanks to its deliciously precise yet low-tech execution.
Will you enjoy Timecop as much as I do, or will you want to travel down memory lane and warn your slightly younger self to never look at it in the first place? You won’t know until you experience the intersection of action and ambitious science fiction for yourself. And if you end up traveling to the past, remember that touching your past will kill you both, so be very Be careful when moving this remote control away.
Timecop is available to stream for free on Tubi.
