Curiously for a B-action star, Jean-Claude Van Damme doesn't have much truck with sequels. To date there have been 3 No Retreat, No Surrenders (or 5 if you include King Of The Kickboxers and American Shaolin), 4 Bloodsports, 3 Cyborgs, 5 Kickboxers and 4 Universal Soldiers, and Van Damme's only been in the first of any of them. Except of course for Universal Soldier: The Return, which suggests that maybe he's got a point. The original Timecop was popular enough to spawn a short-lived TV series that I never bothered to watch, but a direct-to-video 'original movie' starring a bunch of not-quite-famous action types is simply too much for the Beggar to resist. Thus I present to you the Steamed Prawn Buns review of Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision.

The year is 2025, 20 years-ish after the events of the first movie. The Time Enforcement Commission operates just as it did in part 1, going back in time to arrest criminals making illegal time jumps to exploit the past and prevent tampering in history. But just in case this happens, the new Society for Historical Authenticity sends agents back to catalogue the proper course of history so that they can correct any breaches should they occur. The two organisations are entirely autonomous and have their own equipment, courts and punishments for rogue agents.

Berlin, Nazi Germany. A car carrying the Japanese ambassador to a meeting with Hitler is ambushed by a trio of timecops: Ryan Chang (Jason Scott Lee), the TEC's current total kung fu badass, Tyler Jeffers (Tava Smiley), his hot blonde chick partner, and Edwards, their cannon fodder buddy. Ryan stands in for the ambassador and Jeffers his Nazi translator - maybe I saw too much of Private Helga in 'Allo 'Allo! as a kid but hot blondes in Nazi uniforms sure do get me going - while Edwards, being cannon fodder, only gets to pose as their driver. They arrive at a swank party hosted by the Nazis (it's a Nazi party! Geddit? Hello? Is this thing on?) and Ryan mutters something about taking somebody back to stand trial for war crimes. This confused me a tad because surely this would be changing history. UNLESS, of course, you were to snatch somebody at the moment of their recorded death and replaced them with a dead double. Something like this was the basis of one of my favourite Strontium Dog stories in the old 2000AD comic. It was called "The Shickelgrueber Grab" and told the story of how bounty hunters Johnny Alpha and Wulf Sternhammer went back to 1945 to arrest Hitler under his birth name, Adolf Shickelgrueber. The only things in the way were a bunch of less conscientious bounty hunters trying to steal the lucrative job away from them. If you never read Strontium Dog you won't have a clue what I'm talking about, but it's your loss because it was damn cool, much better than that overrated fascist Judge Dredd. You could do a lot worse than to read the origin story Portrait of a Mutant. It's completely irrelevant to this movie of course, which I dare say you'd like me to get back to.

So Ryan and Jeffers (and Edwards) are there to carry out some random timcoppery, which is really just a plot device to get them back to Nazi Germany. Once at the party they discover that Society for Historical Authenticity agent Miller (Thomas Ian Griffith) and his wife/partner Sasha (Tricia Barry) are present too to 'give them a hand'. As events unfold Ryan discovers that Miller is actually there to kill Hitler, reasoning that the terrible repercussions this will have on history is insignificant compared to the millions of lives this will save. Ryan and Miller throw down and in the melee, Miller kills Edwards with a nifty brain-frying tazer gadget. Miller is overpowered but Sasha gets the drop on The Furher, and the only way Ryan can stop her is to shoot her. Uh-oh, the hero just killed the bad guy's wife. That can't be good...

It's two years later, and it's also earlier - damn these confusing time-travel movies! It appears to be the early 1900s and Ryan is on a 30-day suspension in the past. He's done a cracking job of hunting down Miller's gang, but his B-movie approved 'screw those by-the-book pencil pushers in City Hall' attitude keeps landing him in trouble. Even though he's suspended he tracks down the last of Miller's gang, catching him before the Society's own agents can get to him. There's also a fight scene with some nasty Keystone-esque cops that falls somewhere between the hotel lobby fight in Shanghai Knights and the Wall Street office fight in Timecop 1.

Ryan brings the goon back to the present (2025 that is) and he's convicted and executed - the TEC utilizing the method Death by Leftover Special Effect From The One. It seems that while the TEC are still pretty tough on illegal time travellers the Society lock up their own in cushy prisons, which is where Miller's been for the last 2 years. Jeffers is pretty pleased to see the bad guy fry and the Miller case closed, but Ryan is still suffering from pangs of guilt over being forced to kill Sasha.

Here's where things freak out somewhat. Ryan checks in with the head of TEC O'Rourke (John Beck) and sexy short-skirted doctor, um, Doc (Mary Page Keller). Doc secretly has the hots for hunky Ryan even though she won't admit it, and anyway has more pressing concerns. It seems that since the first film the TEC boffins have discovered that too much time travel puts a great strain on the body, and because of this a few timecops have started to freak out and do odd things. Doc is mad at Ryan for taking his suspension in the past, which meant that he could leave that morning and return the same afternoon. This is exactly the sort of behaviour that causes problems it seems.

By a coincidence so whopping it might have been scripted, one of the timecops picks that moment to try and visit himself in the past. What with the same matter not being able to occupy the same space and all that this results in the death of both the present and past selves, meaning that all the time breech arrests the cop made never happened. Wouldn't you know it; one of these was a member of Miller's gang. Miller has thus been busted out of jail by the free goon and is going back in time to kill the parents of timecops so they can never be born... gee, what a novel idea. I wonder if any of them have a parent called Sarah Connor? Anyway, Ryan is forced to watch in horror as the other timecops, including Jeffers, suddenly cease to exist. He has no choice but to travel back to the prison where Miller was being held to try and stop him escaping. Unfortunately he fails and the now completely gaga Miller heads into the past to kill Ryan's ancestors. Despite the dangers of so many jumps so close together, Ryan must travel back to various eras in history (the Old West, the 1950s, the 1980s and 2002) to protect his family and somehow reverse Miller's actions. But there's a twist; Ryan's father died in 2002 and he may have a chance to prevent this. Will he become like Miller and change history to suit himself, or will he obey the rigid TEC law..?

I've only read one other review of Timecop 2, by Scott 'Foywonder' Foy at Ain't It Cool News. Given that Scott's only purpose on that site is to provide amusing but total condemnation of 'easy target' movies like Extreme Ops and From Justin To Kelly, it's not surprising that he slated it. Having seen a couple of movies subsequent to Scott reviewing them, I get the feeling he goes somewhat over the top in his abuse to fulfil his only function on the site - because even though Timecop 2 is by no means a good film, it is a fun film.

The script by Gary Scott Thompson is a curious contradiction. While the dialogue isn't all that bad - apart from the inevitable technobabble howlers that always plague dumb sci-fi - the plot is complete nonsense. The nerds who spend days arguing the temporal inconsistencies in the Terminator trilogy would most likely suffer frontal lobe prolapse when faced with Timecop 2, but it's hardly as if the original Timecop was much better in this regard. But Timecop remains one of my favourite Van Damme films because in spite of the goofy futuristic trappings and dumb plot it's thoroughly entertaining. In that sense, Timecop 2 is a fitting successor.

The look of the film has taken a step back from the original, based on money more than anything else. 'Advances in time-travel technology' mean that the timecops now need only sit in a chair, which luckily dispenses with the expensive rocket sled set needed the first time around. CGI has improved immensely since the original though, so the flashy-zappy time travel effects remain pretty cool even on the much-reduced budget. A cute in-joke is the video display controlling the jump apparatus, which features a little three-pronged graphic that looks a lot like the flux capacitor from a certain time-travelling Delorean... The 'past' sequences are good because the filmmakers were able to use pre-existing sets on the Universal lot, so the Wild West and early 20th century locations look suitably authentic.

The cast runs the gamut from pretty crappy (Doc) to slightly above average (Jeffers), covering all points in-between. Thomas Ian Griffith has been in a bunch of forgettable stuff but is probably best known as the evil karate master in The Karate Kid III, and he makes for an utterly generic villain. As soon as you see his hair is bleached blonde you know he's the bad guy. Still, he's a big, imposing chap and has enough martial arts skill to look reasonable in the fight scenes.

Then to our hero, Jason Scott Lee, who is best known for portraying the titular hero of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. I suspect I'm the only one of Bruce's fans who quite liked that film; most were horrified by the extent to which it played fast and loose with the real events of Bruce's life, the lacklustre, only slightly Bruce-like fight scenes and a leading man who played a caricature of Bruce rather than the man himself. Call me crazy, but these sound like essential ingredients of a 1970's Bruceploitation movie. Take Dragon as the logical successor to Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave and I think it works pretty well. In Timecop 2 Jason's delivery is still very Bruce-like, his fighting style is mostly Jeet Kune Do (fight choreographer Jerry Poteet not only studied Jeet Kune Do with Bruce himself, he also worked on the fight scenes for Dragon) and during the final rumble he even performs the very Bruce-like act of ripping off his bloodied shirt to reveal his glistening pecs. Some people will find this extremely bizarre, but as a huge fan of Dragon Lee and his ilk I ate it up and asked for more. Only overdubbing those authentic Bruce Lee “Woo! Ha! Hiyip!” noises could have made it truly perfect.

As for the action, it's decent without being breathtaking. None of the performers are up to Jet Li speed but they do convey the sense of knowing what they're doing, something distinctly lacking in these days of Cameron Diaz-fu. Credit is due to former stuntman turned director Steve Boyum, who at least knows where to put the camera and how to edit to show a fight to best effect - something most a-list directors of the last few years would do well to learn.

Timecop 2 features some decent action, reasonable if-not-good performances by the stars, a script that contains little-to-no logic and a hot blonde in a Nazi uniform, so that's one better than the first one at least. Granted, you miss out on Mia Sara naked but this is a fair trade-off for not having to see Jean-Claude Van Damme's bare arse. Apparently this is the first of a trio of DTV Timecop sequels and even though I may be the only one, I look forward to the next one.

Dave Thomas. 1^st October 2003

Some of my comments above prompted a debate between Scott Foy and myself; a selection of his email responses follow. I'd also add that I've read a lot more of his extremely fine work since then, and dismissing him as I did in this review shows just what an idiot I was back in '03:

From: Scott Foy

To: beggarsoshat@hotmail.com

Subject: re: Timecop 2

Well, "fun" is subjective but I don't recall totally condemning Timecop 2. In fact, I even said I wasn't completely sure how I felt about it because it was such a mixed bag and even you stated the logic gaps were headache inducing. I'd put Timecop 2 in the same category as Extreme Ops. But yes, I do tend to go over the top from time to time (for example Bulletproof Monk - that was not a good week). However, movies like Begnini's Pinocchio, My Boss's Daughter, and Half Past Dead could drive just about anyone mad.

Actually, the aspect of my Timecop 2 review that was most merciless was the ripping of the time travel paradoxes. As I said in my review, all time travel movies suffer from things that don't quite add up but Timecop 2 just goes above and beyond. Its both entertaining and frustrating as hell at the same time.

Later

Scott Foy