September 19, 1994 -- ``Timecop'' is the latest time-travel action flick to hit town. It is fun, but it's no ``Terminator.''

The movie stars martial arts expert Jean-Claude Van Damme as a cop, Walker, who travels through time to stop criminals who violate time travel law. It deals with the usual time travel dilemmas, like what do you say to yourself when you meet yourself in the past after traveling through time? The main problem with the film is that the script has many obvious logical gaps. Time travel gets very tricky and you have to keep track of all the consequences when you travel into the past.

For instance, when time agents and others travel into the past in the film they do so in a kind of high-tech rocket sled. The sled disappears when the agents go into the future and reappears when they return to the past. Where does it go in the meantime? Is there a time travel vehicle garage in the past where you can park it?

Walker goes into the past to save his wife from the assassination plot of Senator McComb, ably played by Ron Silver. Walker knows that McComb is behind multiple murders and multiple time travel crimes, but fails to act against McComb and thus prevent all the bad things that happen in the future when he has the chance to do that during a time travel episode early in the film.

There are many other logical problems with the film. There are some gratuitous nude sexual scenes which serve no purpose except to bump the film's rating up to an ``R.'' If you are willing to suspend your disbelief a great deal, however, it isn't a bad movie.

Van Damme is good in the action scenes and veteran director Peter Hyams maintains a brisk pace throughout. There is also some humor to lighten the dark tone of the film. The actors are competent, as are the stunts and special effects.

``Timecop'' is fun in a dumb kind of way. For me, it is what Siskel and Ebert call a guilty pleasure. It rates a C.

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