Memory is a tricky thing. In the 1987 original RoboCop, Detroit police officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is revived as a machine-man who recalls only echoes of his former life. He’s more wiring than wet-works, and his human memory is corrupted. Reading the initial reaction to the RoboCop reboot (mostly from people who have yet to see the movie) it seems that the memory of those who watched the original may also be suffering some corruption.
Some have called the new RoboCop the most "unnecessary reboot ever." Forever ever? Oh, I get it — it’s hyperbole, right? Like, "I’d rather get shot in the head by the dad from That ‘70s Show than listen to your whiny nostalgia-drenched nerd rage?"
Certain RoboCop diehards have the idea that the original is a piece of high-brow cinema. "It’s social commentary and satire!" But, that doesn’t make it smart or high art. What is the intellectual value of Murphy’s porno-gor-ific death in the ‘87 original? Or the flash of bare breasts in the police locker room? Or the toxic waste bath that turns one baddie into a melting, gooey mess of walking flesh?
It’s a comic book on the screen, so lighten up. It was a black comedy that poked fun of corporatization, consumerism, media and government, but it was also a super-silly ultra-violent action movie intended to entertain. This is a franchaise that has sold action figures and cheeseburgers and video games, and, I’d say, it shouldn’t be held so high as to consider any attempt at reinterpretation (even a dreaded PG-13 take on it) as cinema sacrilege. After all, as RoboCop reboot head bad guy OmniCorp CEO (Michael Keaton) says about changing Robo’s paintjob from showy silver to tactical black: “People don’t actually know what they want until you show it to them.”
I'd buy that for a dollar.
So, take a deep breath and hear me out. Believe it or not, there are some things the new RoboCop does well... after the jump!
Some have called the new RoboCop the most "unnecessary reboot ever." Forever ever? Oh, I get it — it’s hyperbole, right? Like, "I’d rather get shot in the head by the dad from That ‘70s Show than listen to your whiny nostalgia-drenched nerd rage?"
Certain RoboCop diehards have the idea that the original is a piece of high-brow cinema. "It’s social commentary and satire!" But, that doesn’t make it smart or high art. What is the intellectual value of Murphy’s porno-gor-ific death in the ‘87 original? Or the flash of bare breasts in the police locker room? Or the toxic waste bath that turns one baddie into a melting, gooey mess of walking flesh?
It’s a comic book on the screen, so lighten up. It was a black comedy that poked fun of corporatization, consumerism, media and government, but it was also a super-silly ultra-violent action movie intended to entertain. This is a franchaise that has sold action figures and cheeseburgers and video games, and, I’d say, it shouldn’t be held so high as to consider any attempt at reinterpretation (even a dreaded PG-13 take on it) as cinema sacrilege. After all, as RoboCop reboot head bad guy OmniCorp CEO (Michael Keaton) says about changing Robo’s paintjob from showy silver to tactical black: “People don’t actually know what they want until you show it to them.”
I'd buy that for a dollar.
So, take a deep breath and hear me out. Believe it or not, there are some things the new RoboCop does well... after the jump!
- The cast -- Keep the original RoboCop on a pedestal if you must, but I hope we can at least admit the cast of the 2014 version is an upgrade. Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Michael K. Williams (The Wire’s Omar), Samuel Jackson, Jackie Earle Haley — heck, I even liked Joel Kinnaman’s less robotic take on Alex Murphy (his robot-walk is way superior) over one-dimensional Peter Weller, who plays a human all of about 10 minutes before he’s shotgun blasted apart like a trash bag filled with pulled pork, Cherry Kool-Aid and M-80s.
- The world -- While the sci-fi dream of automated-killing machines was more fiction than science in 1987, a character like RoboCop is borderline believable in a post-drone world. We also get a little philosophical with this more realistic take. Is a conscience a requirement to pull the trigger? In the marriage of man and machine, where does the man end and the machine begin? It has about as much depth as a play through of Metal Gear Solid (speaking of: Robo’s new suit and some of his abilities bear a striking resemblance to a swordless Raiden, though a bit more Westernized) but the opening scenes give us a world where I felt OK giving a new RoboCop a fair chance.
- Realism -- There’s a bit more realness this go-round, which is good and bad. On the good side, rather than jumping from making oversized wind-up toys that can manage the AI needed to determine a threat (most of the time) but can’t take the stairs right into cyborgs, the RoboCop reboot explains the breakthrough in tech by bring in a scientist (Gary Oldman) specializing in robotics used to assist amputees. Sounds science-y enough to me! Also adding to the realism: While ‘87 RC just randomly waddles around the city stumbling onto crimes, ‘14 RC pulls surveillance feeds, wiretaps, criminal databases and open case files to calculate his next move. It’s semi-believable and pretty badass.
But, as the haters have guessed, it’s not all an upgrade.
- For one, RC ‘14 is less of a comic book and more of a typical PG-13 action flick. From the shaky documentary-style camera work to extended scenes of computer animated meh (an all-CG throwdown between Robo and an army of ED-209’s is particularly uninteresting) that feel like watching someone play Xbox, there’s a lot of not-memorable crap going on.
- One of the film’s most disappointing moments is the squandered potential of what could have been a killer PG-13-friendly gun battle. Set in a pitch black warehouse punctuated by the strobing light of machine gun fire, I was getting ready for some heart-stopping tension. But, the scene spends too much time in the firefight in night-vision and heat-vision to really pull us into what could have been an edge-of-the-seat scene.
- Samuel Jackson channels Bill O’Reilly for the new segments that frame this fictional future, though it ends up being less of the Network-like harbinger of things to come from the original and more of a note-for-note parody of the right-wing news commentary. This works for some laughs, but it also often overstays its welcome.
Your move, creep.
RoboCop 2014 is more a tale of revenge than justice, which can lead us to cheer on RoboCop even when he’s outright breaking the law. That, plus the lack of comic book zaniness of the original is sure to turn off devotees of Paul Verhoeven’s original. But, the strength of the cast goes a long way toward making up for the film’s weaknesses, and living in a world where robots actually are being used as killing machines provides a good enough reason to give the RoboCop franchise a fresh start.
Though it doesn’t have the staying power of the original (you'll probably be done talking about it by the end of your car ride home), if you can leave your cherished memories of the '87 model at the door, it’s a fun ride and certainly not the abomination some are making it out to be.
--Eric Pulsifer
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