ROBOCOP remake finds its director and star

"Better than Robocop 3" doesn't really count for much though.

 

I was hoping the remake would at least be better than Robocop 2.

 

Wait... There were sequels to Robocop?!

 

It's surprising that given how many follow-ups Robocop got, none of them are any good beyond the arguably good Robocop 2. (I know a lot of people really don't care for it, but I still dig it.)

Robocop 3 - terrible. Robocop The Series - really terrible. Robocop cartoon - utterly terrible. Robocop movie minseries - good gravy, so terrible!

 

Let's face it, the new Robocop is tackling a different subject than the original. Some of the usual man/machine questions are still there, but the message is different and updated. Quite frankly, with a foeign director, the take on the USA in Robocop was quite negative, and a lot of the speculation from the movie has not come to pass...violence and crime in the USA is down, and technology has made America more competitive rather than the reverse. Also, while consumerism is more relevant than ever, it is now more customized than it ever was, which can be a positive thing as well. I'm expecting it to be better than the original. Though I will wait and see it first of course.

RAMA

 

The director of the remake is also a "foreign" director.

 

Well I saw it today. It wasn't as bad as expected, better than the Total Recall remake, but still pretty much just a throwaway PG-13 action movie.
There were some good bits, especially...

Spoiler: spoiler for a scene, not huge but midly

Seeing what was left of Alex Murphy when the suit is all stripped away, great scene

Sorry, I'm a bad mood due to life stuff, I can't be bothered writing much else right now

 

Robocop 2 was.... :swallows hard:..... "okay." But I think it too the over-the-top violence of the first one and then kind of went too far with it. They also seemed to regress Robocop's refound "humanity" from the end of the first movie back to him being "just a machine. (I guess we could argue that OCP jiggered his programming.) I did like sort of a cute nod to real-world events with Robocop; namely him shortly becoming a more child-friendly character with all of the new "directives" they gave him. Sort of mirroring how children took to Robocop and the movie after the first movie came out. Hell, I watched it all of the time as a kid and my parents took me and my brother to see the second one opening night and I was 10 or 11 and my brother three years younger. Ahh the 80s/90s when action movies were Rated-R and parents took their kids to see them.

As an adult, though, I don't much like the 2nd one and the third one? Forgettaboutit! The TV series was mostly okay and I liked the first cartoon alright.

But, really, nothing has really compared to that first movie. It's just pure, over-the-top fun and a great pardoy/microcosm of 1980s business practices and coldness.

I just don't think this remake is going to be "as fun." But, we'll see.

 

That's the point of the original movie. America is being slowly taken over by corporations and everything we as a society consider important is being stripped away because it doesn't make them a profit. The whole movie is an attack on America in the 1980s, mainly Reagan's views on economics. They even mention his Star Wars defense system, in the movie it misfires and hits California, killing several former Presidents.

 

Spoilers!

Just returned from seeing the new version of Robocop and to put it first.. not as bad as anticipated but i doubt it'll become a classic movie like the original Robocop.

Apart from Alex Murphy and some other minor stuff this is a total remake of the story. It is a decent blockbuster movie with, as expected, very high production values and an updated version of the methodical walking human tank known as the 80s Robocop.

First the flaws of the movie.. in my opinion it fails on its basic premise, i.e. what do you lose when you become more machine than man. There were a few scenes like showing a disassembled Alex Murphy where all that's left are his lungs pumping inside a plastic chest container and his head (admittedly a rather gruesome and sad scene) or when he visits his family post-transformation but the whole plotline kind of falls flat besides the big CGI battles.

The other is the scientist who comes up with the design. We meet him and he's dedicated to improving/restoring people with cybernetic prosthetics and when asked by the CEO of Omnicorp to use this technology to build Robocop he expressly denies citing he has an agreement that his technology would not be used in warfare.
Next scene we see him designing Robocop and in the course of the middle act do some pretty morally questionable things to him only to switch back to good guy for the last act. You could get vertigo from all the flip flopping of this character.

The good stuff of the movie mainly concerns the technical aspects of the movie.. i really liked the design of Robocop (it's got an appropriate modern design) and his capabilities, as well as the idea behind robots being responsible for security (we are on the way there but far off from the sophistication of the movie robots).
And stuff blows up good.. typical action movie fare these days but well done.

So how does it compare to the original Robocop movie (i'll only include the first movie, the rest are crap)?

Well.. it ain't become a classic i believe but it's a solid action movie. Social critique is still there, especially in the beginning where OCP military combat robots police a Tehran street and scan every inhabitant ( well, fuck you civil rights!) only to be attacked by suicide bombers. We also see the limits and dangers or robots when an ED209 blasts away a kid because it showed up on the street with a knife wanting to join the fight even though he had no chance of even damaging one of the robots (this is the reason why Americans didn't want robots as a police force in the US).

The critique is more subtle but Verhoeven is not so he pushes you by force by using over the top, ridiculous humor that gets stuck in your throat (the same method also used in Starship Troopers).

Another appeal of the original is Robocop itself. He seemed so menacing because he was slow moving and didn't dive for cover at all (initially) which is awesome by itself. From this alone you instantly recognize him as a badass piece of tech and man when he just walks into a building filled with enemies and take them out one by one without breaking stride.

The 2014 version jumps, weaves and rolls through combat which is the modern version of movie combat (the same as with original Star Wars was lightsaber combat vs. the new trilogy). It's up to everybody which they prefer, i like both versions.

Where the new movie falls behind without a doubt are the villains. The original had so many iconic villains.. Dick Jones (the always great Ronny Cox) as the corporate enemy. Kurtwood Smith as Clarence Boddicker are just leagues above the current version of soulless and amoral corporate versions led by Michael Keaton. The new ones just get so overboard excited, especially the marketing guy who practically drools everytime he praises how much money they'll make off Robocop that it becomes a caricature and thus totally uninteresting.

So the original Robocop wins out as expected but i guess today's kids would find the old Robocop dull because he's so slow. The new one is the product of our age and 2010s and it has its merits and the movie can stand on its own, just not against its original version (and not only because of the sanitized PG13 version).

 

What about the Robocop theme? I've seen in some reviews that the original theme pops up here and there, but I'm curious if it's just a brief homage, or if it's actually the main theme for Robo like in the original movie.

 

It is the main theme that plays over the title and can be heard several times in the background during the movies.

There are small "cameos" too of the original Robocop suit design such as the CEO deciding on the design and looking through variants of it on his computer.

 

Just saw it.

I don't think it'll go down as a memorable film but it's alright as a scifi action thriller about a man who loses his humanity by becoming a machine. As the latest incarnation of RoboCop though, it's more of a straightforward action movie than the original but it offers something new and interesting. This time we have a version of Alex Murphy who's fully conscious of the fact that he's no longer a regular man and will no longer be able to live a normal life. It's a fascinating story to follow (as much as an action movie can) and in that respect, it outdid the original. I'd say this was a better remake than the 2012 Total Recall was.

In an interview, Michael Keaton called this "the thinking man's RoboCop" and it kind of is. It touched on some good subject matter when Murphy was redesigned at one point to rely on his computer programming rather than human emotions so that he could act quicker. The way it was presented, it mirrored the idea that learning to get out of our own way and out of our own biased thinking can bring about clarity and allow us to act more naturally, and in Murphy's case, without fear or hesitation when a threat needed to be dealt with. The movie didn't expand on that further though and opted instead to have Murphy remade yet again to be an emotionless robot, and this is what played out for the rest of the film. I wonder what the movie would have been like if they had stuck with the former idea.

More thoughts…

• I was impressed with the all-star cast.
  
  
• It's nice to see Jackie Earle Haley back on the screen again. He made a big comeback a few years ago, almost got an Oscar, then moved to TV, then disappeared for a bit.
  
  
• The soundtrack wasn't nearly as memorable as the original's but at least we got a bit of the old theme. I was glad to hear it because I've always thought that the music was a big part of what made the 1987 movie.
  
  
• Lot's of nods and homages to the original. I won't mention them, you'll be able to pick them out.
  
  
• Looks like Murphy has to undergo dialysis everyday, making him ineffective for long missions.
  
  
• Why keep the hand?
  
  
• The technology was advanced enough to make me wonder why he had to be encased in armor instead of something that resembled a real humanoid body. Of course he needs armor in the line of duty, but why not a more natural look for everyday living? Maybe in the sequel.

 

Any actors from the original film with cameos of their own?

 

I didn't notice anyone

 

There are a couple of variations of lines in the original, such as

Spoiler: minor line spoiler

someone saying "I wouldn't buy that for a dollar."

 

Does Robo say "Dead or alive...you're coming with me"?

 

He says it in every trailer and tv spot there is, so I'm going to say yes.

 

Saw the movie tonight, and have to agree with most of the critics. It started out really well, with a surprisingly powerful and disturbing scene in Tehran. But then the main story starts and it just becomes less interesting and more plodding as it goes along.

Kinnaman is a complete stiff, the action (what little there is of it) is dull and lifeless, and there are no truly hissable villains to speak of at all (just an opportunistic CEO and a generic crime boss who makes no impression at all). In fact the Detroit in this movie is so seemingly calm and peaceful you never get the sense that a Robocop is even truly necessary.

The original movie had you rooting for Murphy all the way, and really wanting you to see him get revenge and kick some ass as Robocop. But this one never comes close to making you feel that. There's no scene in this that's half as powerful as the one in the original where Murphy flashes back to his old life while walking through his home, or when his fellow cops turn on him in the parking garage. In fact looking back on it, I can't think of even one truly exciting or memorable action sequence in this movie involving the character at all.

I give the movie points for trying to explore the themes of the original in a deeper way, and for trying to be more than just a dumb, Michael Bay-style action movie. But ultimately it all amounts to not that much, and I just couldn't care about any of it.