Director: Steve Boyum
Writer: Mike Richardson & Mark Verheiden (comic series) Gary Scott Thompson (written)
Starring: Jason Scott Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Mary Page Keller, John Beck,
Distributor: Umbrella(AUS)
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WARNING SPOILERS!!!
TIME COP 2: THE BERLIN DECISION is the follow up to the 1994 hit movie TIMECOP starring Jean-Claude Van Damme (and a lesser extend the 1997 failed tv series of the same name, starring Ted King). In typical sci-fi movie fashion with the Ryan Chan (aka The Time Cop aka Jason Scott Lee) explaining the world in which the film is set. He works for the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) and his job is to arrest anyone that abuses time travel for there own personal advantage. So after the opening titles we film out the movie deals with the cinemas favourite bad guys! That’s right Lesbians Vampires’!!! Um.. I mean Nazi’s. Ryan and his group have to do some kind of mission in Germany. Two of his team members (Miller and Sasha) decide they’re going to do the world a favour and kill Hitler. Could you really blame them? Ryan, being a stickler for the rules of the space, time continuum decides to stop him. He kills Sasha but Miller gets away. The decision in Berlin (or the Berlin Decision as it were) would affect the rest of known time. I just have to point out that actor playing Hitler doesn’t really look like Hitler. The only reason you know it him is by his moustache (that’s if you haven’t confused him with Charlie Chaplin).
So Ryan wakes up in 1890 then goes into exposition about how time travelling effect’s him and the reason behind his job. It turns out the government thought TEC had too much power and allowed an history preservation agency to use the technology.… which of course was a bad idea as people like Miller abused it. Now sadly this is where the film falls apart. Ryan is in the 1890’s looking for Miller’s men. The film never really links the name Miller but the character from the pervious scene. So at this point I was a little lost. I was still thinking Miller was an off screen villain. So a few scenes drag on…. To a scene in which Ryan looks down at this watch, is confused then has a strange childhood flashback. He is interrupted and told O’Rourke (his hard arse boss) wants to see him in his office. This happens to be the most important scene of the movie (but this isn’t obvious until later.) The Doctor (Mary Page Keller) who happens to be called Doc is having a some what interesting conversation about the technicalities of time travel with O’Rourke. Doc argues that O’Rourke isn’t giving his men enough rest time between missions and they’re all going crazy as a result of it. We learn that when Ryan was in 1890’s he really was on 30 days suspended duty. It was assumed it would serve this out in his current time line. It was never stipulated which time frame he had to do it. So that morning he left for 1890’s. He spent his 30 days there, and then returns to his current time line that afternoon. Clever huh! Doc tries to plea the moral and physical implications of doing this. O’Rourke doesn’t care. Ryan comes in the end of the scene to ask her out. We learnt that Miller is actually in jail (I still have no idea who Miller is. Maybe that 1890 scene would have been better used by having Ryan capture Miller). Doc leaves. Ryan tells O’Rourke that he is contemplating leaving the service all together (as he is going crazy). Before any real decision can be made the typical female sci-fi voice tells them there has been a time breach.
A time cop called Douglas tried to bring a younger version of him self back to the future on the same time line. Bad idea! If you do that, you end up looking like a mutant. So the problem is this. If Douglas dies, he will also die in the past and every criminal he has every brought in will go free. They send another time cop to go back and stop him from doing it but he gets fried in the process. There current time line starts breaking down. In the words for another time traveller known only as The Doctor “a timey whimy” thing happens. Miller is in the World Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane (WPCI) as a result of all the timey whimy stuff he gets free and starts killing off all of the TEC. Ryan has to go back in time (before Miller brakes out) to stop him (which is extremely dangerous). He gets to the World Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane (which looks just like a normal jail. For such a great name I was expecting a little more). Miller tells him he is going to kill him in time. Ryan gets pulled back to the future. He pleas to go back. If the time travel won’t kill him Miller certainly will. Just before he gets relaunches he feels the need to talk to Doc about there date (his timing seems a little inappropriate) anyway Doc has no idea what he is talking about. Then tells him her husband died in the war. Thus alerting in to the fact that his currently time line has changed. He gets back to the WPCI to find out that time line has changes once again and Miller isn’t there. Back to the future things have changed ever more (O’Rourke has a kick arse eye patch now). So there is only one solution to Ryan’s problems. He needs to go back to the old west to stop Miller. In the old west he finds character from the movie playing other characters (that’s clever and saves money). So this hoe down doesn’t last that long and they end up chasing each other through time.
Finally Miller attempts to kill Ryan’s father. Ryan stops him but get shot and transported back to the future (at the same time). There we find out he was actually shot in his watch (how ironic). Ryan travels back in time AGAIN. This time its’ EVEN more dangerous but hey what has he got to lose. He travels back to a flash back he had at the start of the film… ummm.. I mean he time travels back to a lecture father gave while he was a kid. His father is lecturing on time travel. Young Miller happens to be one of his students (what’s the chances of all of this trying in so nicely). Anywhoo Miller ends up killing Ryan’s dad in the toilets. Young miller comes in. Ryan has a chance to kill him but he decided to kung fu it out with Miller like a man. Ryan dose this really impressive side kick then takes off his shirt and shows why he was cast as Bruce Lee in DRAGON. I wish Miller would take off his shirt. His shirt is so ugly it makes my eyes want to vomit. By this time all the main characters have crowed around them. Ryan is about to kill Miller but changes his mind when he see the utter disgust on his mothers face. He pled with young Miller to change. Something good must have happened as they all fade away. So back to the future (for the final time), now remember the most important scene of the movie. Ryan goes on to play out a condensed version of that scene. That is: Doc tells O’Rourke how dangerous time travel is. O’Rourke doesn’t care. Ryan asks Doc out, and she shoots him down. The female sci-fi voice goes on to tell everyone there has been a time breach. The movie ends on Ryan doing a double take! DA DA DAAAA!
The script has some interesting elements to do. It presents time travel as a dangerous thing that can effect a both a travellers body and mind. This is a fantastic idea that hasn’t really been explored in time travel moves before. The first ending is interesting. Very rarely do you see action orientated movie end on the bad guy evolving into someone better. Usually the bad guy just dies. The film’s second ending (the time loop) is a little cliqued but the idea of Ryan being permanently stuck in a dangerous time loop is cool enough to work. The script was just a little too confusing for its own good. They’re just too many time shift and the whole 1980’s sequences just seems needless. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention had enough but the movie was just hard to follow. The direction is pretty average. I wasn’t worth of the material. The parts involving time confusion were very effective. While the special effects went bad, they were just cliqued. E.g. when they time travelled there was a pond ripple effect. TIME COP 2: THE BERLIN DECISION almost was one very cool movie. The script just needed a little more work and better direction. If you after a time travel movie just watch old episodes of DR WHO instead.
LESLIE MORRIS
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