TIMECOP (Directed by Peter Hyams. Starring Jean Claude Van Damme, Ron Silver, Mia Sara)

Or perhaps that should be Tamkop. “Zer is nevair enuv tam,” says JCVD to the unfortunate Mia Sara. I say unfortunate because, cast as Van Damme’s wife she is not long for the world, or the screen. Ever since Kickboxer established the Brussel sprout as the latest in a long line of vertically challenged action heroes, those cast as his nearest and dearest have had a short life expectancy, giving him the revenge impetus that drives him, karate kicking, through the plot. Predictably enough, she gets gratuitously murdered in the first 15 minutes, and her embittered husband spends much of the rest of the film glowering and meting out punishment.

JCVD is clearly on a quest for world domination, and the production values of his films have been continually improving. In the hands of genre specialist Peter Hyams (Capricorn One, Running Scared, 2010, Narrow Margin), Timecop is a further cut above, a cleverly plotted violent variation on Back To The Future. In the year 2004, time travel has become a reality, bringing with it new law enforcement problems when miscreants start manipulating the past to their own ends. The newly widowed Jean Claude is dispatched in their wake to ensure history is unchanged, but, forbidden to alter the past, the one thing he cannot do is return to save his wife.

Handsome, physically impressive, intense, committed and with perfectly formed buttocks, the only things that stands between Jean Claude and superstardom are his vowels and consonants. I can’t help but laugh whenever he opens his mouth. Still, it didn’t stop Arnie, or even Sly (hardly the world’s most eloquent conversationalist) and somehow the fact that Jean Claude’s very persona is laughable adds to the entertainment value. Hyams surrounds his star with class actors and special effects worth the term, keeps the pace moving briskly, makes the most of all the time travel paradoxes and gets the inevitable kickboxing scenes over as quickly as he decently can. I have to confess that I enjoyed this hokum immensely. When his partner, Fielding (Gloria Reubens) remarks “You’re not funny”, JCVD replies, completely deadpan, “Am nevair fun-eh.” For once, he may be seriously underestimating himself.