Robocop (2014) Review

Yesterday I saw Robocop and was satisfied with the movie. It is a near future action movie set in the year 2028 were drones and unmanned weapons have become the United States main weapon abroad. This trend was ushered in by OmniCorp run by Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) whose proposes a way to convenience the American public and congress to repel Dryphus Act which bans the use of robots domestically. The method would be to fit a human being and enhance with cybernetic prosthesis.

Enter Alex J. Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) who is a Detroit Police detective on the hunt for a weapons dealer Antoin Vallan (Miguel Ferrer). Injured from a car bomb at his home and planted by two corrupt cops. He is disfigured, and basically disabled. OmniCorp scientist Denet Norton (Gary Oldman) asks Alex's wife, Clara (Abbie Cornish) to sign release forms to preform surgery. After much thought she says yes, and through a gruesome process Alex is transformed into Robocop who then cleans the city of Detroit, but overrides his emotional suppression to seek out the corrupt cops who attempted to murder him.

One of the best things in the movie is the action direction who was directed by Brazillian director Jose Padilha of Elite Squad fame. Sticking true to his cinematic roots of the various set pieces are fast paced with many quick cuts. It gives you the same visceral quality as Elite Squad, but the gratuitous gore have been toned down to get a more financially viable PG-13 rating.

Another quality part of the movie is the supporting cast, as usual, Gary Oldman has a remarkable performance as Denet Norton, a scientist who threads the ethical line, and in the end exposes Omnicorp's distasteful practices to congress at the end of the movie. He views that his research should help and not hurt people. Michael Keaton does a great job as Raymond Sellars who is basically a evil version of Steve Jobs. A very marketable, yet morally ambiguous public figure. We also have Samuel L. Jackson in a small supporting role as Bill O'Reilly-esque or Chris Matthews-esque political pundit, Pat Novak. Him flipping out at the end is best monologue within the film.

I also like the subjects it touches which most of the 1987 movie's themes were there corporate corruption, the struggle between man & machine, and media control. It does modernized the mythos by adding in commentary about American foreign intervention in Iran were a ED-209 droid shoots a 13 year old kid whose armed with a knife, and suicide bombers trying to destroy the droids patrolling during a live news cast.

For the old school fans, there are some nice homages to the original. I am not going to spoil them, but when you see or hear them you'll smile. There's also some flourishes of the original's black comedy as well.

Now to the ugly parts, first thing is the pacing. This is a retooling of the Robocop series that has been modernized, but lacks the clever satire of the original movie. Instead of giving a funny but painfully true statement about American society, it beats it into your head with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Funny enough, if Padilla wasn't on this project I'd imagine this would've (love his games through) been called Hideo Kojima's RoboCop. I would've expected Sellars to cough up a 15 minute monologue of how Corporatism is helping the country, but thankfully not before the final battle.

Many of the concepts in the movie are told through dialogue as opposed to the original’s showing via in movie TV Spots/Character actions, but then again this is a basic concept in movie making. I think this was the screenwriter’s attempt to convey the message to a younger audience but it backfired.

Finally and sadly though, Kinneman doesn't convey the pathos Peter Weller did in the 1987 iteration. What sold me on him was his face, but unfortunately Kinnaman doesn't emote the stoic presence Weller had. He does retain the slow stilted movement of the 1987 iteration had. Cornish also had a phoned in performance mostly due to her not having much characterization besides being the worried wife. This made the supposed emotional moments lack the intended impact.

Overall, it's a solid action movie that sloppily gets the point of the 1987 classic. A great supporting cast helps out a struggling lead, has some great set pieces, and themes for your average movie-goer to think about. The pacing does bog down, and the ham fisted social commentary get in the way of surpassing the original.

As a retooling it's great, but as a replacement it fails.