RoboCop (2014)

Director: Jose Padilha

Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish, etc

Country: United States

Rating: PG-13

Run Time: 118 minutes

Note: Reviewed at time of theatrical release.

This review marks a venture into territory uncharted on this blog. What I mean is: remakes. Remakes and reboots are the name of the game nowadays in Hollywood. And now the classic 1987 Paul Veerhoven directed RoboCop has gotten the remake treatment. Before I start this review, I want to say that Paul Veerhoven is in my opinion one of the greatest action directors of all time (Total Recall, Starship Troopers, and RoboCop alone earn him the title). With that said, I tried not to let some of my biased love towards the original and its director completely obstruct my opinion of this remake. I tried to be as open minded as possible. However, it is very difficult to discuss this film without talking about the original too. Therefore, let's embark on this trip into Jose Padilha's RoboCop. 

"Woah, you're not Peter Weler."

This RoboCop remake takes elements of the original's plot and constructs an entirely new plot from them. In doing so, I at least had no clue what would happen and enjoyed that this was not a direct retread of the same old plot. I hate when remakes do that. Therefore, it was something new and the film was immediately better for going in that direction.

Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is an undercover cop. He investigates thugs by day and loves his wife (Abbie Cornish) and his son very much. However, a planted bomb from his car kills him one night. His life is saved with the use of a robotic suit thanks to the genius of Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman). Norton works for Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), the shady CEO of OmniCorp. As Alex has to learn to adjust to becoming a RoboCop, Sellars and his company have plans for RoboCop and use him as a marketing tool in their quest to place a robotic police force all over the United States. 

I miss the old ED-209's.

Well, let's start with the elephant in the room: PG-13. That's right people. The studios decided that taming the action and making more money was more important to them. The PG-13 rating definitely shows. There is no blood in any of the action scenes at all. Seriously, the squibs in Veerhoven's RoboCop are beautiful. And here...nothing. The action scenes are also very fast paced and cut quickly too. Gotta love that shaky cam! One big shootout takes place entirely in a dark warehouse. Therefore, the only thing that lights up the room is gunfire and Robo's heat vision. Talk about nauseating and confusing. For those who are curious, I did enjoy the restaurant shootout near the opening of the film and the big ED-209 finale where RoboCop takes on several ED-209's at once. 

Joel Kinnaman is our new Alex Murphy. Unlike Peter Weller, Kinnaman has no distinct facial or voice traits. In the original film, you hardly get to see Weller's face. In this however, you constantly see Kinnaman's face. His vizor slides back all of the time. I really found Kinnaman to be a bland and emotionless lead. He should not be an action lead, he just doesn't have it in him. 

A lot of the supporting cast is extremely forgettable too. Cornish does nothing but cry as Murphy's wife and pops up every now and than to cry some more. Keaton is a bland villain and all of his supporting marketers are boring too. The most useless supporting characters are Jay Baruchel's and Jackie Earle Haley's. Their characters add nothing to the film and were created just for this remake. Samuel L. Jackson is kind of entertaining as a Bill O' Reilly parody in the form of a talk show host. However, his character also doesn't add anything to the film. All he does is explain and review whatever the news is regarding RoboCop. To be honest, I think his role would have been more effective if it was reduced to a cameo. It would have been more memorable that way.

Kinnaman puts on his action face.

The crime lord character named Antoine Vallon is totally useless too. He is clearly the replacement of Boddicker (That 70's Show's Kurtwood Smith) from the original but has barely any scenes. One of the film's biggest mistakes is that it tries to give an even amount of screen time to all of these supporting characters. Seriously, there are so many supporting characters in this film and none of them feel essential. All of the supporting characters in Veerhoven's RoboCop were either essential, likeable, or very very memorable. This remake just feels too bloated when it comes to characters.

However, one supporting character single handedly saves this film. Gary Oldman is incredible in this film. I loved every second of him in. He even had the most interesting character arc of them all. Dr. Norton was even more interesting than RoboCop! I don't know about you, but whenever a supporting character surpasses the lead, something is wrong.

Haley tests Robo's gun handling skills.

The other things that bothered me about this film was RoboCop's inconsistent ability to control himself. In the original film, we see three different states of Alex Murphy that are beautifully broken up into three acts. One: human. Two: robot. Three: robot with human emotions and memory returning. These are three distinct, simple, and easy states of a character to keep track of. They flow perfectly with the plot structure and are never confusing.

This RoboCop on the other hand is rarely in control. There must be at least five different states of control. What I mean is that RoboCop is slightly in control in some scenes, fully in control in others, comatose and emotionless in the next, and than back to being fully in control. It fluctuates far too often and it becomes a little confusing near the end as to how simple it is for Alex to take over.

But as the positive person that I am, I did find some things to enjoy in this unnecessary remake. As I stated before, Gary Oldman's performance as Dr. Norton is fabulous. I loved every scene of his and was happy that he got so much screen time too. We even get to see what is left of RoboCop's body and it is pretty graphic. I found it surprising that upon Alex Murphy's discovery of his body being placed into a robotic suit, he does not accept it. Instead, he demands to be euthanized and that his family told the procedure did not work. I thought this was a very interesting character decision that was not touched upon in the original film at all.

The film also has one or two moments of Basil Poledouris' great score from the original. However, hearing that music only makes you wish you were watching the superior original. And lastly, this remake made the wise decision of not being a direct remake. For everything that I disliked, I at least did not know what to expect and found it still to be a new and enjoyable experience plot wise. That is, for the first time around. Don't expect me to be buying this on Blu Ray ever and rewatching it a whole bunch. It's not worth it.

Akimbo RoboCop.

RoboCop suffers from too many things. Its PG-13 rating heavily tames its action, the supporting characters are underdeveloped and bland, the CG designs look far too familiar, and our new RoboCop lead is nothing to write home about. A few saving graces are not enough for me to even recommend this remake though. In all honesty, stick with the masterful Paul Veerhoven RoboCop. It's hilarious, awesome, epic, and incredibly memorable. This is utterly white noise in an already crowded year of action.

Mature Conclusion of Mine Added As Of Sep. 2014: Jose Padilha essentially breaks down Veerhoven's original into a character driven sci-fi filled with discussions of scientific ethics and marketing politics. But beyond that, Padhila ditches the original's memorable humor and bad ass action scenes in favor of a serious tone, CG heavy effects sequences, and tame gun fights. While I can see some audiences enjoying this change of pace, I personally find it to be a corporate and studio driven decision to ensure ticket sales by attaching the familiar name of RoboCop to a PG-13 rating.

Rating: 5/10 - Jose Padilha's RoboCop (or as I am going to refer to it from now on as RoboCop 2014) is just not a good film. If you absolutely have to see some new big budgeted action right now, than I recommend it because you could be watching far worse stuff (like I, Frankenstein or Hercules: The Legend is Born).

Franchise:
RoboCop (dir. Paul Veerhoven, 1987)
RoboCop 2 (dir. Irvin Kershner, 1990)
RoboCop 3 (dir. Fred Dekker, 1993)
RoboCop (dir. Jose Padilha, 2014)