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Timecop (1994) Review

Timecop (1994)

Directed by Peter Hyams

Based on Timecop by Mike Richardson & Mark Verheiden

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ron Silver, Mia Sara, Bruce McGill, Gloria Reuben

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
Max Walker, an officer for a security agency that regulates time travel, must fend for his life against a shady politician who’s intent on changing the past to control the future.

My Opinion:

Okay, despite loving ’80s & early ’90s movies as I grew up on them, I had never seen a Jean-Claude Van Damme film until watching Bloodsport a couple of months ago. Goddamn, that movie was FUN! I liked it so much I gave it a full-length review HERE. It was cheesy & cliché & just the right amount of ridiculous to make it into that “so bad it’s good” category (like my beloved Road House!). Timecop, unfortunately, was not nearly as much fun but I did still quite enjoy it.

I think Bloodsport gets away with its great early ’80s feel (although it came out in 1988) but Timecop has too much of that bad ’90s action movie look & feel about it. And hints of that future horrible mullet are starting to appear. Again, Van Damme is not exactly a “good” actor so it’s hard to take him too seriously as this heartbroken cop who enforces, like, the laws of time travel or some shit. I don’t know but that sounds a bit like the Loki TV show so far! Which, admittedly, is a great idea for a story but was executed very poorly in this film. Which is a shame as, honestly, this could’ve been a kick ass movie with an even bigger budget & a blockbuster star and a far better script. But Timecop was still kind of fun even though Van Damme did his signature splits far less than in Bloodsport (but he did them at least twice including a great split across a kitchen counter which was almost as cheesy as the “tree splits” in Bloodsport). I couldn’t find a good image of the kitchen counter splits online so I grabbed this from a video:

By the way, Van Damme gets his naked bum out briefly in this movie just like in Bloodsport if you’re into that sort of thing.

What can I say? This movie isn’t good but it’s fun. Watch The Adjustment Bureau or the fantastic Predestination if you want to see truly good stories involving time travelling cop types. Watch Timecop if you want a dumb time travel story written around Van Damme doing sexy splits & Mia Sara, aka Ferris Bueller‘s girlfriend, showing her boobs. Oh! OH! And a baddie has an AWESOME (***spoiler*** but not really a spoiler as this movie is predictable) death scene. Awesomely BAD but so bad it’s awesome. Like, BAD low-budget body horror shit for a few brief seconds out of fucking nowhere in this thing. Loved that. I’m giving this an extra half a point for the best dumb death scene I’ve seen in a while.

My Rating: 6.5/10

Rent-A-Pal (2020) & Butt Boy (2019) Reviews

Okay, these were two quite bizarre films that I watched recently so I figured I’d post a double review…

Rent-A-Pal (2020)

Directed & Written by Jon Stevenson

Starring: Wil Wheaton, Brian Landis Folkins, Kathleen Brady, Amy Rutledge, Adrian Egolf

Music by Jimmy Weber

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
1990: David, 40, looks after his dementia mom. He uses a video dating service to no avail. He buys a “Rent-A-Pal” video tape and things change.

My Opinion:

This was a weird one (although not nearly as weird as the one I’m gonna review next). As in the plot synopsis above, a lonely guy buys a videotape called “Rent-A-Pal” in which a dude named Andy says he’ll be your friend. This movie was actually quite good! It’s one of those movies that looks like a full-on horror film looking at the poster & images but it isn’t really – it’s more of a psychological thriller following a lonely man’s descent into madness. So not all horror fans are going to go for it but it’s also probably way too strange for a more mainstream audience. If you like fairly low budget indie movies (I’m just assuming it’s both of those) with a strange story, this might be one for you. And be aware that it’s nothing like Ringu before you possibly think that based on the creepy videotape thing.

And now for a confession: Please do NOT let this make you not watch this if you’re interested as he’s great in this but I totally watched this due to my undying love for Wil Wheaton. Yeah! Wil Wheaton! You have no idea how much I adored Stand By Me when I was 12/13 and how many times I watched it (many, many times). I was completely in love with Wil and, of course, River Phoenix. And I continued to be in love with Wil as Wesley Crusher (TNG fans were horrible to poor Wesley. I loved him!!). Well, Wil is the guy in the creepy videotape this lonely dude buys. Wil’s character just “wants to be your friend”. Honestly, he’s so good in this and so creepy.

The main character is played by Brian Landis Folkins & I thought he was terrific as well. He really captured the extreme loneliness of this poor middle-aged man stuck at home having to care for his sick mother & having to rely on a “videotape dating service” to find himself a match to hopefully share his life with. But, in the meantime while waiting for a love match, he buys the “Rent-A-Pal” video and that’s when things start getting nice & weird. I admit it: I love weird movies (which will be obvious when you get to my next review). So I liked this one & it felt like a very original story. I was also surprised at just how good it turned out to be as I wasn’t expecting anything too special since I’d never heard a thing about this whatsoever, not even on Film Twitter. It’s a good character study of someone suffering from extreme loneliness & it has good performances. So, yeah, maybe not the best thing to watch if we go back into a full scale pandemic lockdown! And bear in mind that it does get a bit crazy at the end. Only watch it if you like strange films.

My Rating: 6.5/10

Butt Boy (2019)

Directed by Tyler Cornack

Starring: Tyler Cornack, Tyler Rice, Shelby Dash, Brad Potts, Austin Lewis, Robert Moss, Tyler Dryden, Kai Henderson, Wilky Lau

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
Detective Fox loves work and alcohol. After going to AA, his sponsor, Chip, becomes the main suspect in his investigation of a missing kid. Fox also starts to believe that people are disappearing up Chip’s butt.

My Opinion:

Hopefully you read the above plot synopsis? Yes, this movie is indeed about people disappearing up a dude’s butt.

As I watch so many movies, I get very bored seeing the same predictable stuff over and over again. Therefore, I do seek out weird movies. I don’t necessarily want to see bad weird movies but seeing a synopsis such as the one above makes me go “Yep, that sounds unique!”. I’d love to make a Top Ten of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen but think it would be difficult as everyone will have a different definition of weird. Although I think we can all agree on this one being weird! Hmm… What could be in that list? Rubber for sure. Things like Society? Maybe. Possibly some good stuff like the movie Swallow that I watched recently? Not sure if that’s weird enough. Okay, I want to make this list someday! Now onto Butt Boy…

This actually isn’t a bad movie. As far as, I dunno, production values or whatever (I don’t know anything about filmmaking). But it looked good (as in, it didn’t seem really low budget or anything) and I remember thinking the score was interesting & fit this bizarre movie well. The acting was perfectly fine too. And, yeah – I really wanted to know what was happening to everything (and everyone) going up this guy’s butt. I also liked the character of the detective (even though he totally reminded me of an ex-boyfriend). He’s mysterious and you can tell he has some tragic backstory and he’s very determined to prove his theory (that, you know, people are disappearing up that dude’s butt!).

Well, I don’t know what else I can say about this. It’s the type of movie I can’t exactly recommend. You’ll either look at that plot synopsis and go “Hell yeah, I’m watching that!” or “WTF kind of weird ass shit does this chick watch? I’m never reading this blog again”. Seeing as we’re all movie bloggers, though, I’m sure a few of you might check this out (Film Miasma!). Also, I should say that the pay off is pretty good in the end (Haha! In the end! Literally!). This movie builds very slowly and then you get a great END (Ha! I said end again). Well, either it’s a great ending or a horrible ending depending on your opinion of it. A fucked up ending may be a better way of putting it, which is exactly what I wanted from a movie about people disappearing up a guy’s butt. I’m rating this half a point more for the truly original story idea.

My Rating: 6.5/10

**I should add that I looked into the director of this film a bit (Tyler Cornack – he also stars in this as the guy sticking junk up in his trunk). Turns out he has a YouTube channel of all kinds of weird & wonderful very short films (an original short Butt Boy being one of them). I’ve not had a chance to check any out yet but the link is HERE if you’re interested. Actually, I don’t know how to add a link to a channel because I’m an old person but that link brings you to the trailer for the channel & the channel is called Tiny Cinema. I’m intrigued…

Bloodsport (1988) Review

Bloodsport (1988)

Directed by Newt Arnold

Story by Sheldon Lettich

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Donald Gibb, Leah Ayres, Norman Burton, Forest Whitaker, Bolo Yeung

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
“Bloodsport” follows Frank Dux, an American martial artist serving in the military, who decides to leave the army to compete in a martial arts tournament in Hong Kong where fights to the death can occur.

My Opinion:

Yeah! Bloodsport!! This is where my rating system is confusing to people (maybe?!). This movie is terrible. But I’m giving it a 7.5, about the same as my recent ratings for Promising Young Woman & Swallow, both of which I really enjoyed & thought were good. I’ve not yet reviewed these but I’m giving two absolute worthy classics that I watched this past month a 7.5 as well (Battleship Potemkin & The Innocents). Why?! I don’t know. I just rate on a combination of a) how much I enjoyed a movie (this is the first & most important), and then b) if it’s a “good” or worthy film. I gave Mank a 7/10. I didn’t enjoy that one at all, really, but I know it’s “good” so I gave it a 7 to be nice. But I had a hell of a lot more fun watching Bloodsport!

First of all, shockingly as I grew up in the ’80s and adore that decade & love everything from it, this is the first & only Jean-Claude Van Damme movie I’ve seen. I just always avoided him & Steven Seagal as their movies looked rubbish. I mean, we had Sylvester Stallone & especially Arnold Schwarzenegger at the time making some damn good movies, so why would I want to watch bad action movies? Well, I suppose Van Damme & Seagal were a bit later & more into the ’90s but you know what I mean. I just didn’t see the point of watching their shit. Plus Van Damme had a terrible mullet in later movies. He was kind of a cutie in this early film, though. And, wow – that ASS! I’m fine with the only nudity in this being male nudity. What a butt! (Why can’t I find a decent image of that butt to post here?! Found a nice gif, though. May have watched that a few times…)

I think it actually helped that I watched this for the first time in 2021, so I thoroughly enjoyed the absolute ’80s fucking cheese of this. So I felt nostalgic whereas I probably would have just thought this was bad if I’d watched it in 1988 when it came out. And it actually looks & feels more like an early ’80s movie, not late ’80s when movies started to get a little bland (that’s a good thing – the early ’80s feel works for this martial arts genre). The early & late ’80s were a lot different as there was a spillover of the groovy ’70s at first. I suppose it made this feel a tiny bit closer to the ’70s masterpiece Enter The Dragon. Not that I’m comparing them, exactly – I just don’t have much experience in the martial arts film genre so am going to think of the very few others I’ve seen plus a bunch of people come together to fight “to the possible death” in both movies. But Enter The Dragon is awesome and a classic (8.5/10 – I loved it AND thought it was actually good).

Van Damme is good in this, I guess. He’s great at the martial arts stuff, at least. Right? I don’t know. What do I know? I’m a wuss & know no martial arts. He’s maybe not so great at the acting stuff but no one watches this kind of movie for Oscar worthy performances. And I loved his friend in this (Jackson, played by Donald Gibb, the big dude who played Ogre in Revenge Of The Nerds). He was funny & super likeable in a big dumb doofus sort of way. And Van Damme’s training at the start of the movie was hilariously silly. There’s a thing he’s made to do where you just KNOW he’s gonna have to use it at the end of the film. How convenient! Ha! Well, there are a few things he learned while training which came in super handy at the end (those splits!). And why on Earth did the young version of Van Damme look nothing whatsoever like him plus he sounded weird (was there odd dubbing or ADR or some shit – I dunno, I know nothing about this stuff either!).

So, back to the splits… Van Damme does those painful looking splits so many times in this thing. First time was funny as hell while tied up to trees and the final time was way up high overlooking everything because, yeah, who wouldn’t want to sit there on painful stone doing painful splits while getting massive vertigo? Here’s what I’m talking about:

Actually, I just looked up “Bloodsport splits” for an image and there were so many from this movie that I’m just gonna go ahead & stick them all in here. Love it!

I guess that’s impressive, though. Ouch! All I can say is THIS:

As I’m an idiot who knows nothing about this stuff I’ll say that I did read about the film & it’s based on some guy’s “true story”. So I don’t want to go dumping on the movie too much. But I’m a little concerned now & thinking that there are huge underground death-matches going on for real! Is this a thing?!? Well, the real guy is Frank Dux & his claims are disputed. Here’s what Wikipedia says about it: “According to Dux, a ninjutsu expert named Senzo Tanaka trained him as a ninja when he was a teenager. He established his own school of ninjutsu called Dux Ryu Ninjutsu, and has said he won a secret martial arts tournament called the Kumite in 1975. His alleged victory at the Kumite served as the inspiration for the 1988 film Bloodsport starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Dux’s victory at the Kumite has been disputed, as has the existence of both the Kumite he described and Senzo Tanaka.”

Well. I kind of loved this movie? Or, at least, I loved watching it. As I tried to watch a lot of dreary & depressing Oscar nominees the past few months, it was nice to just relax and have good giggles over a fun ’80s movie. Oh, and there’s lots of fighting in this too if you like that kind of thing! Nice – I didn’t even mention the actual fighting in this “fight to the death” film! Whatever. I’m a girl. I was distracted by his butt. The fighting was great. I do actually love these fights. I think I might actually like these martial arts films?? I’ve now seen this, Enter The Dragon, Fist Of Fury & Ip Man (now THAT is a damn good film). Fun! I like. What martial arts film should I watch next?

My Rating: 7.5/10

Oh, let’s end this post with this amazing backwards kick thingy he used on this dude.