Jean-Claude Van Damme made a lot of filmsAnd many of them are … not great. But there is then the handful of jewels in the career filled with action by Van Damme. I’m sure everyone has their own favorite, and mine is “timecop”, the deliciously ridiculous science fiction action photo of Peter Hyams (A potential remake was announced in 2014, but fortunately it never happened). I mean, first of all, the film is called “Timecop. “It is difficult to resist a film with a title like this, especially when the film itself offers exactly what is announced: a cop traveling in time.

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“Timecop” was based on a series of comics, but since I never read that, I will not comment. Instead, I’m going to talk about the film, which now has a new 4K version of The Good Folks at Shout Factory. I was able to review the film for this new 4K version, which led me to the original theatrical criticism of the film of the legendary Roger Ebert. Reading this criticism, in turn, led to something surprising: a direct and apparently impossible connection to a completely different time travel film.

But I will come back to it momentarily.

Located in the distant future of 2004 (!), “Timecop” presents a world where time travel exists. As is the case with most time travel films, there are rules. During a very Entertaining the exhibition dump at the start of the film (delivered in an expert by actor Scott Lawrence), we learn that you can travel back in time in the past, but you cannot travel Before In the future, because the future has not yet occurred. Of course, this immediately causes a paradox: if you travel in time, how can you return to the future, aka your gift, if you can’t to travel?

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The answer: it doesn’t matter. “Timecop” is not really concerned about logic. He just wants to use his great clumsy premise and have fun. And this is the case. Van Damme plays Max Walker, a cop working for the law enforcement commission (TEC), which is responsible for monitoring time travel. You see, if time travel exists, it goes without saying that some bad players will try to use it for harmful ways. The punishment to do this is extreme: whoever has taken the future over time is deathly condemned.

Max’s wife, Melissa (Mia Sara), was murdered a few years ago, so I bet you can guess where things go: Max will end up using time to save the life of Melissa. But he must first face the wonderfully evil senator Aaron McComb, played with a delicious sufficiency by the late Ron Silver. McComb plans to use time travel for both to become rich And Become president of the United States. A bad president?! Talk about wacky!

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I saw for the first time “timecop” when he struck VHS (I am old) in the mid -90s, and I was a fan, of the way teenagers are fans of films with a lot of punches, kicks and filming. Revisiting the film now in 4K, I remain a fan, although I can see how silly the film is. But it is not a blow against “Timecop” – indeed, stupidity makes the film all the more pleasant.

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Nothing here really makes sense. The TEC consists in maintaining the existing calendar and not interfere with the past, and yet the very act of returning Max in time to do timecop stuff is, of course, interfering with the past. At the start of the film, Max returned to the 1920s and joined a great fight with his ex-partner, who became a thug to manipulate the stock market. Many things explode and the villain literally gets a building when he died. Of course, this event changes, by default, the past! Isn’t that a problem?

Or, how about that. To travel in time, Max must enter a car sitting on a rail, a bit like an amusement park stroll. The vehicle is then launched on a track and finally returns Max over time. At the end of the track is a large brick wall, and we are told that if the time machine does not work, the vehicle will slam in this brick wall and kill the occupier – it has already happened. But Why put the brick wall there to start? You can easily avoid this danger! In addition to all this, whenever Max returns in time, the small time travel car in which he is disappearing; He presents himself in the past. Then, when Max returns to the future (alias his present), he does it via the car. How? Again: it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we can watch Van Damme take a few strokes and kill bad guys.

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As I mentioned above, the redesign of “timecop” leads me to Roger Ebert’s film criticism, published in 1994. Whenever I watch or real a more an older film, I generally look for the criticism of Ebert – Ebert was one of the best to do it, and I appreciate his insight and his wisdom (something that is deeply lacking in our current landscape of the film review).

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Ebert gave “timecop” 2 in 4 stars, which was right. But it was the last paragraph of Ebert’s review that really caught my attention. Ebert compares “timecop” to another science fiction franchise in time: “Terminator”. While he ends his criticism, he writes:

“It is not as long as the premise of the original” Terminator “was torn off, because Hollywood went to the past and has been torn apart the fabric of time, and that is why we got` Timecop ” with Van Damme instead of “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines` “ with Schwarzenegger. You see what can happen. “”

Here I made a double socket. Ebert talks about a third hypothetical film “Terminator”, which he calls (jokingly) “Rise of the Machines”. But of course, “Terminator 3” ((AKA The third best film “Terminator”) would finally be done – and when he was, he was indeed called “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” But here is the thing: this film did not release before 2003, almost a complete decade after the criticism of “Timecop” by Ebert. Rapid research indicates a The early script for “Terminator 3” a subtitle “Rise of the Machines” broke out in 1997But it’s still a few years After Revue “Timecop” by Ebert.

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In other words, Roger Ebert in a way predicted precisely the title of “Terminator 3.” Is it a coincidence? Or did Ebert somehow traveled in time itself, just like the maximum of Van Damme, and did he learn the truth? Of course, we all know that it is impossible – Ebert should have been traveling in the future, and as a “timecop” has taught us, it cannot happen.

You can buy “timecop” on 4K here.