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Timecop is a 1994 American science fiction action film directed by Peter Hyams and co-written by Mike Richardson and Mark Verheiden. Richardson also served as executive producer. The film is based on Timecop, a story created by Richardson, written by Verheiden, and drawn by Ron Randall, which appeared in the anthology comic Dark Horse Comics, published by Dark Horse Comics. It is the first installment in the Timecop franchise.
The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Max Walker, a police officer in 1994, with time travel having been made possible, and later a United States federal agent in 2004. It also stars Ron Silver as corrupt senator Aaron McComb and Mia Sara as Melissa Walker, the agent's wife. The story follows Walker's life as he fights time-travel crime and investigates the politician's plans.
Timecop remains Van Damme's highest-grossing film as a lead actor (his second to break the $100 million barrier worldwide). Although met with mixed reviews, it is generally regarded by critics as one of Van Damme's best films.
By 1994, time travel has been invented by Dr. Hans Kleindast, prompting the U.S. Department of Justice to establish the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) to prevent alterations to history. Travel to the future is impossible, but changes to the past can create ripples that reshape the present. Senator Aaron McComb volunteers to oversee the TEC, while police Captain Eugene Matuzak becomes its first commissioner. Detective Max Walker is offered a position, but before he can accept, he and his wife Melissa are attacked at home by unknown assailants. Walker survives, but Melissa is killed in an explosion.
By 2004, Walker is a veteran TEC agent. He travels to 1929 to apprehend his former partner, Lyle Atwood, who has been exploiting knowledge of the Wall Street Crash for financial gain. Atwood admits he is working for McComb, who is secretly funding his failing presidential campaign through illicit time travel, but refuses to testify for fear McComb will erase his family. Atwood is executed, and Walker grows suspicious of McComb.
After surviving another ambush, Walker is partnered with rookie agent Sarah Fielding. They travel to 1994 to investigate a disturbance and witness the younger McComb about to be bought out of a computer chip company by his partner, Jack Parker. The 2004 McComb arrives, warns his younger self of the chip's future value, and kills Parker. He also cautions his younger counterpart against making physical contact, since two versions of the same matter cannot coexist without mutual destruction. Fielding betrays Walker, revealing she works for McComb, but is gravely wounded in the ensuing gunfight as McComb escapes.
When Walker returns to 2004, he finds history altered: McComb is now a wealthy presidential frontrunner who has shut down the TEC. With Matuzak's help, Walker deduces that McComb is using Kleindast's original prototype and returns to 1994, though Matuzak is killed by McComb's men in the process. McComb concludes that Walker must be erased from history before he joined the TEC.
In 1994, Walker tracks down Fielding in a hospital, hoping to have her testify against McComb, but she is murdered by McComb's assassin while Walker is destroying evidence of her hospital stay. He inadvertently discovers Melissa's records, revealing she was pregnant when she died, and realizes he has returned to the day of her murder. He finds her and convinces her to stop his younger self from leaving home that night.
At the Walker house, McComb's henchmen attack, forcing both versions of Walker and Melissa to fight them off. The 2004 McComb arrives, takes Melissa hostage and threatens to kill her with explosives. Confident his younger self will rise to power without Walker's interference, he is caught off guard when Walker lures the 1994 McComb to the house. Forcing the two McCombs together, Walker causes them to merge into a grotesque mass that disintegrates, erasing McComb from existence. He rescues Melissa and leaves her beside his unconscious younger self before the house explodes.
Back in 2004, Walker finds history restored: Matuzak and Fielding are alive, McComb vanished without a trace in 1994, and at home Walker is reunited with Melissa and their young son.
Richardson and Verheiden then teamed up to write the screenplay for the movie adaptation.
By 2010, the rights to the film had reverted to Largo successor InterMedia, and Warner Home Video subsequently issued a Blu-ray of the film as a double feature with Bloodsport on September 14 that year. After Shout! Studios acquired distribution rights to all Largo titles, an 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray edition was released on April 29, 2025, featuring a new 4K remaster of the film.
Roger Ebert called Timecop a low-rent Terminator.
Richard Harrington of The Washington Post said, "For once, Van Damme's accent is easier to understand than the plot."
David Richards of The New York Times disparaged Van Damme's acting and previous films but called Timecop "his classiest effort to date".
The film made Entertainment Weeklys "Underrated Films" list in November 2010, mostly because of Van Damme's acting.
A direct-to-DVD sequel, , was released in 2003, starring Jason Scott Lee and Thomas Ian Griffith, and directed by Steve Boyum. In 2010, Universal Pictures announced a remake of the film, to be written by Mark and Brian Gunn, but it was never made.
The film, which was originally based on a comic, was adapted into a two-issue comic book series of the same name. A game based on the movie was developed by Cryo Interactive and released on the SNES in 1995. Additionally, a series of tie-in novels by author Dan Parkinson published in 1997–1999 featured the Jack Logan character from the television series.
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