1994’s Timecop was the first true worldwide blockbuster for martial-arts action star Jean-Claude Van Damme. Under the direction of Peter Hyams (Outland, 2010: The Year We Make Contact), the Muscles from Brussels found a role in the Dark Horse Comics film adaptation that allowed him to show dramatic range while throwing fancy high kicks and splits. Rather than capitalize on its success with an immediate sequel, Universal Pictures went the straight-to-video route without its star in 2003’s Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision.
Following the release of Timecop, director Hyams had no interest in a direct follow-up. There was simply no further story for Van Damme’s Time Enforcement Commission Agent Max Walker, who reversed the murder of his wife (Mia Sara) at the hands of greedy Senator McComb (Ron Silver). After an ill-fated run as a television series for ABC in 1997, the Steve Boyum-helmed sequel with Jason Scott Lee (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story) replacing Van Damme as the TEC hero tries and fails at expanding the original film’s dark themes surrounding the repercussions of time travel.
What Is ‘Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision’ About?

Image via Universal

Written by Gary Scott Thompson (The Fast and the Furious), Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision takes place in the future of 2025, two decades after Agent Walker changed his history. Without directly acknowledging the events of the 1994 film, a new organization called the Society for Historical Authenticity (SHA) enacts a law prohibiting TEC agents from changing the past. Such a law sets the stage for Brandon Miller (Thomas Ian Griffith), a historian and high-ranked member of the SHA who wants to fix history’s mistakes with a plot to use time travel to assassinate Adolf Hitler during World War II. Only one man stands in his way: TEC Agent Ryan Chang (Lee).
Though Agent Chang prevents Miller from succeeding, his society sympathizers are following in his footsteps by targeting other historical figures such as Andrew Carnegie. When Miller gets out of prison due to an ill-fated TEC agent’s failure to capture one of the sympathizers, the manic historian seeks revenge by going after every agent’s family to erase them from existence. With Chang as the only living TEC agent left, he will have to track Miller down in time while course-correcting the damage he leaves in various periods.
The entertainment value of the original Timecop comes down to two elements: Van Damme as a charismatic action star and Silver’s compelling performance as McComb. The Muscles from Brussels was able to overcome his acting limitations, with Hyams emphasizing his humanity and charm. Similarly, Silver’s power-hungry senator was a breathing real-world omen for politics in the future. Unfortunately for The Berlin Decision, Lee lacks the Van Damme charisma and Griffith comes off as a rip-off of his signature role as Terry Silver from Cobra Kai.
‘Timecop 2’ Suffers From Its Straight-To-Video Budget

As Timecop’s premise is a Terminator-like revenge tale, The Berlin Decision plays like an episode of Star Trek. Considering Miller’s obsession with changing history for his definition of good rather than self-attainment like McComb, the sequel dives into deeper themes about the moral implications of altering history. Such themes are instilled in Chang, who inherited his views on preserving history from his lecturer father who was against time travel. As one might find Miller’s actions to assassinate pure evil like Hitler sympathetic, it is at the expense of doing harm to those who enforce the law.
Even with a far more dense story than the Van Damme film, The Berlin Decision suffers from its straight-to-video budget. It should have surpassed the original by having Chang time travel to more time periods than Van Damme, including 1940s Berlin, 1890s Atlantic City, 1800s Texas, and more. But the vast majority of the locations clearly look like soundstages shot for a television show, lacking Hyams’ masterful use of low-key lighting and shadows that made the original look thrilling. Even the visual effects of TEC agents entering liquid portals are reduced to TV-level composites. The worst of them all is the poor, grotesque makeup of the TEC agents physically merging into each other upon returning from time.
Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision’s well-thought-out concepts on time travel, combined with a layered villain, could have had serious potential with the right director and a large budget behind it. But without the charismatic star power of Van Damme — and with a focus on philosophical debates over the original’s fast-paced action — the film fails to live up to its predecessor, try as it might.

Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision

Release Date

September 30, 2003

Runtime

81 minutes

Director

Steve Boyum

Writers

Mike Richardson

Producers

Mike Elliott

Cast

Jason Scott Lee

Ryan Chan

Thomas Ian Griffith

Brandon Miller