“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”
Which is of course one of the many excellent lines in the 1987 original, and the only memorable line in the remake…
Firstly, the original RoboCop, directed by Paul Verhoeven, is an undeniable classic in my opinion. It was smart because of it’s quitty stabs at consumerism, politics and capitalism, through great satire. It packed emotional punch, through RoboCop’s realisation that he used to be human. And most importantly, it was fun! With it’s copious blood squibs, superb score and a fantastic hero, as well as horrid villain’s who you love to hate.
Unfortunately, the remake fails to recreate basically any of the originals charm.
The tone of the movie was misplaced. The filmmakers went down the route most filmmakers take when aiming a movie at a largely male teenage audience, and took a bit of Chris Nolan’s dark and angsty juice. I love Nolan, but nobody can nail dark and angsty apart from him. Seriously, the film was so sullen that it becomes yet another film devoid of fun simply because Hollywood believes that nobody likes to have fun at the cinema. Just because of Batman Begins/Bournes success, apparently the only reason for going to the cinema is to watch a 30-something year old white man mope for 2 hours over some trauma that he experienced in the past. A film like this needs to be tongue and cheek – it’s called RoboCop for God’s sake! People go into this movie wanting to have fun, not be emotionally drained!
As well as this major fault, the film’s changes to the original source material are absolutely pointless. Giving Murphy emotion once he enters the RoboCop suit ruins one of the integral premises of the original film – the fact that Murphy regains some emotional recollection after dying. Honestly it might not seem like much, but the original film created such a sad idea around that concept, by having RoboCop visit his house in the original and have flashbacks of his family. In this the family are front and center of the story, which doesn’t work because they have very little point, and in the original it was done a whole lot better without them even being in it.
But the main problem with the film is that it’s too generic. The action scenes are in particular, which are simply overlong shaky-cam shots. Out of the four main action scenes, one of the major ones is shot almost completely in the dark, clouding the view of the probably great choreography. Everything about the film is unoriginal, and therefore uninteresting.
The acting is ok, but nothing to write home about. Same with the cinematography and the direction.
The one thing that i really liked about the movie was the way it melded some scenes with music. For example, there is an excellent scene in which RoboCop’s mind goes through a training simulation, while the Tin Man song from The Wizard of Oz plays. A true stroke of genius. As well as the Clash song “I fought the Law” playing in the end credits.
Overall the movie was poor, but there are things which are enjoyable about it. Gary Oldman and Sam Jackson are good in their roles, although Jackson does seem to be phoning it in. It was not so much a bad movie as it was a completely unremarkable one. It was pointless, since the original is such a masterpiece.
5/10
Harvey Gardner 