From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Oct 4 14:52:17 1994 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.kth.se!sunic!trane.uninett.no!eunet.no!nuug!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!news.bu.edu!gw1.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: good@pixar.com (Craig Good) Subject: REVIEW: TIMECOP Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #02920 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Good Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com ~Reply-To: good@pixar.com (Craig Good) Organization: Pixar Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 03:29:45 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 50 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:2223 rec.arts.sf.reviews:620 [Followups directed to rec.arts.sf.movies. -Moderator] TIMECOP A film review by Craig Good Copyright 1994 Craig Good The destination of tonight's BNO (Boys Night Out) was TIMECOP, the latest Charles Van Damme vehicle. I don't believe I have ever seen a duller action picture in my life. When I saw Peter Hyams' name on the credits, I knew that a) the depiction of technology would be incredibly stupid, b) the politics would be both stupid and Politically Correct, and c) there would be a terrific chase sequence somewhere in the movie. Well, two out of three ain't bad. Time-travel movies, as a genre, present many plotting challenges. One may either face the Grandfather Paradox and turn it into a brilliant twist, as in BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, or one may turn tail and fall tumbling through plot holes the size of the Grand Canyon. With Van Damme's leaden acting as ballast, TIMECOP takes the plunge straight down into mind-numbing boredom. A good stupid movie, such as SPEED is said to be enjoyable if you just "shut down your brain" for a while. While watching TIMECOP I had to go way past any higher brain functions and was starting to shut down the autonomic systems. It didn't help. I was down to just respiration and a heartbeat, and the movie *still* didn't make any sense. Should you have the misfortune to actually see this film, don't even *think* about engaging your brain during the period between the end of the film and when it vanishes from your memory (a very dangerous five minutes) because you'll probably strip a gear and need a tow truck for your head. The production design is probably the funniest thing about the film. The "futuristic" cars look like old Fords that had been attacked by a High School art class armed with lots of Tupperware and glue. The computer effects might have been impressive had the producers found a way to transport the film back in time some ten years, but today they make nearly as dull a thud as Van Damme's acting. It's not all his fault, though. Hyams may not know how to shoot a martial arts sequence, but at least he can make a gratuitous sex scene look like it was accidentally cut in from a completely different movie. And he never did deliver that chase scene. By now, some readers are thinking, or hoping, that this is a "good" bad movie. Wrong. This isn't so-bad-it's-funny. It's just lay-there-and-stink bad. TIMECOP is a time-travel movie which succeeded only in making my watch stop for a couple of hours. --Craig From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Oct 4 14:52:17 1994 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.kth.se!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!news.bu.edu!gw1.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: yacco@earthlink.net (W. Yacco) Subject: REVIEW: TIMECOP Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #02921 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Yacco Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com ~Reply-To: yacco@earthlink.net (W. Yacco) Organization: Yacco News Services Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 03:30:02 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 52 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:2224 rec.arts.sf.reviews:621 [Followups directed to rec.arts.sf.movies. -Moderator] TIMECOP A film review by W. Yacco Copyright 1994 W. Yacco Aside from serving principally as a means of connecting between the fight-scene dots, the TIMECOP plot does nothing but suffer in it's exposition. You do come to understand that there's a conspiracy, and if you're quick, or are already familiar with sci-fi time-travel plotting, you'll probably pick up on the seemingly unmotivated early action involving unexplained characters. No, the problem isn't that the movement loses the viewer so much as that it never captivates the viewer or generates any real involvement with either the characters or the story. Can you care about the quest to save a wife you've barely met, and whose relationship to the hero is barley developed? It's not likely under the best circumstances, but the story isn't about such a quest until the very end. In fact, only two characters have more than a single dimension: Van Damme's hero and Ron Silver's arch-villain. Yet other than a few sneers, even their interaction starts late in the film. What TIMECOP needs is a something at the outset that the audience can look forward to throughout the film. But there's nothing: no mystery, no conflict, no holy grail, nothing but one almost incidental battle after another. If there had only been something to care about, you might even be willing to suspend your disbelief enough to accept the preposterously amateur boxes-on-wheels that are supposed to pass for vehicles of the future. For that matter, you might also overlook some of the staging. For example, the time-travel concept, lifted whole cloth from BACK TO THE FUTURE, has time travelers being propelled into whenever on a rocket sled. What makes it particularly ludicrous is that the tracks are deliberately built up to a wall in an effort to force a sense of jeopardy. At least in BACK TO THE FUTURE, when the car ran out of road, it didn't seem to have been planned in advance. Still, TIMECOP is better than a lot of films in either of the genres it mixes. It doesn't really go anywhere, but at least it isn't terribly tedious while it doesn't go there. And even if Van Damme can't rival Steven Segal in UNDER SIEGE (okay, so Segal can't rival Segal in UNDER SIEGE either. Sue me.), at least he isn't completely wooden. And Ron Silver reeks some of his usual evil as well. On my one-to-four lizard scale, TIMECOP rates a one and a half. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + W. Yacco yacco@earthlink.net CIS: 72662,1255 MCI: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++