RoboCop (2014)

Movie Info

Freeze scumbag!

Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) wants his robotic defense machines made by OmniCorp on the streets of the United States.  With a court order called the Dreyfus Act blocking the OmniCorp, Sellars seeks to work around Congress by modifying a human into a fighting machine.  When Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is on the track of crimelord Antione Vallon (Patrick Garrow) and crooked cops within the Detroit police department, he makes himself the target of assassins.  Alex’s wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) gives Alex to OmniCorp and Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) save his life…but life as RoboCop might not be life at all.  Now, RoboCop is on the street and Sellars is approaching his goal of getting the Dreyfus Act repealed…can RoboCop find his killers and uncover the truth about Sellars’ plans before it is too late?

So tell it to me straight doc…am I going to make it?

Directed by José Padilha, RoboCop is a remake of the 1987 sci-fi action classic.  The movie faired strongly at the box office but received mixed reviews from critics who found it hard not compare the film to the 1987 original film.

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to see RoboCop since the original film was a favorite growing up.  The original movie inspired video games, comics, and even a TV show and this movie looked like it has lost the edginess combined with humor…to some extent that was true, but the movie did have some of its own merits.

Why are there so many motherf*!@ing RoboCops on this motherf*!@ing TV?

The story does modernize the story of RoboCop and add some contemporary views of the world’s social problems.  This movie is pretty much a reflection on the idea of drones.  The robot monitors are seen as “drones”, inhuman and uncaring, and RoboCop is a compromise to find a machine with a soul.  It is an interesting and topical concept and the movie does a nice job exploring the pluses and minuses of this.

Unfortunately, RoboCop suffers from a rather uneven and weirdly paced story.  The movie has two fronts…RoboCop trying to solve his own murder and RoboCop uncovering the plots of Sellars.  The murder storyline is rather downplayed and a bit unresolved in the end, but the secondary story of Sellars seems all over the place with Gary Oldman’s character Dr. Norton not coming off very sympathetic as well since he randomly decides to toy with Murphy’s brain over & over again, so I don’t understand why Keaton is solely the “bad guy”.

Hey Ed…how’s it going?

The original film was highly critical of the media…and much of their joking ended up coming true which how news and entertainment is covered.  This version creates a modernized version of this with Samuel L. Jackson.  His character is like a Rush Limbaugh character that has a free platform to criticize and attack (in more of an editorial style versus a journalistic style).  It comes off a little like Network and just does not work as well as the clever and punchy writing of the first film.

Dead or alive…you’re coming with me (but probably alive since I barely kill anyone)

Visually, the movie is quite slick.  I do like the redesigned RoboCop which is less bulky and quicker than the previous robot.  With a full face, Joel Kinnaman’s version of RoboCop is more humane although he has less human parts to him.  I wish there had been more throwbacks to the original like the ED-209 appearances, and I wish RoboCop got to show off his sleeker look through more action scenes which could demonstrate more mobility (plus show how effects have changed over the years).  What really suffers however is that the film needed to be R-Rated.  It might be more realistic that he uses taser weapons, but I miss my explosive, bloody RoboCop.

RoboCop was better than I expected it but still was far from being a good film.  If you have the choice stick to the original and if you’ve never seen the original make sure you see it first (I would hate to think someone would look down on it because of this film).  With a relatively strong response at the box office, a sequel isn’t out of the question…we’ll see if RoboCop will hit the streets again.

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Related Links:

RoboCop (1987)