Review 193: RoboCop (2014)

RoboCop is a decent remake remake of the classic sci fi film of the same name. It sure delivers the goods in terms of excitement but doesn’t hold a candle to the original.

In the year 2028 multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years - and it's meant billions for OmniCorp's bottom line. Now OmniCorp wants to bring their controversial technology to the home front, and they see a golden opportunity to do it. When Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) - a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit - is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp sees their chance for a part-man, part-robot police officer. OmniCorp envisions a RoboCop in every city and even more billions for their shareholders, but they never counted on one thing: there is still a man inside the machine pursuing justice.

The plot is basically the same as the original film, but it removes the satirical touch the original had and replaces it with more political overtones. It questions what OmniCorp does to RoboCop: Is this legal?right? Is this politically correct? Can we live in a system like this? and it deals with the questions really well. Adding up to very thoughtful portrayal of a future where the government may go to the extremes with technology and weaponry to keep the peace and how it could be used in the wrong way which was really intriguing.

The film does, however, keeps the man vs the machine: How much of the man do you take away before he ceases to be a man. During the training simulations theres this recurring taunt of the "Tin Man" about weather or not he is still a machine.
Though when he becomes Robocop, he still has his human side and it's about him actually learning to become more like a robot and then that leads to his struggle against his human and robotic side which is really moving and quite tense and takes the film from and a new angle and makes it interesting.

Director Jose Padiha's direction is precise and smart (I thought he bought a real sense of flare to the action scenes and really helped the actors to give great performances), the cinematography is splendid and captures the sleek look a robotic, technology based future should look, the score by Pedro Bromfman is rousing and exciting, the action scenes are thrilling and well choreographed, the special effects are fantastic, the production design is stupendous, the costumes are great, the make up is rich. The only problem I have was the ending which I felt didn't give us a sense of satisfactory closure as the originals ending had done.

The acting for the most part was well done, Joel Kinnaman makes for and adequate RoboCop, Peter Waller really & truly made the character his own and anyone else in the role just feels like a stand-in. 

he is is a great followup from Peter Weller and from him you really get the sense of how he feels to become like a robot.

Gary Oldman is also great in the movie playing Dr. Dennett Norton, the scientist who's misinformed and is working for corrupt people, however he feels for Murphy and does everything he can to help Murphy adjust to his robotic self. Which makes him come across as the only decent person involved in Robocop's creation.

Abbie Cornish is very good at times as Clara, Murphy's wife, she very convincingly coneys the emotional turmoil of losing her husband and having to raise her son without a him, but her passivity in how she complains about OmniCorp treating her husband like a product as opposed to take action gets pretty wearing.  

she's a loving wife who in a lot of ways has lost her husband and she's struggling to keep in contact with her husband now he's become a robot and wants the family back together which is really heavy emotional stuff.

Samuel L. Jackson is hilarious as Patrick Novak, the host of a political talk show. Pat serves as the both the Greek Chior of the film, spouting out exposition on events that we just saw unfold and serves as a reference to the original RoboCops satirical news segments that mock the oversaturation of commercialism. Jackson delivers all of that in typical unorthodox, outrageous, unorthodox Sam Jackson fashion which provides a great deal of good laughs.
  
Sadly the same can’t be said about the villains, they’re not the worst they're just generic.
Michael Keaton, Jennifer Ehale & Jay Baruchel are both great actors giving solid performances but their individual characters don’t amount to more than a stereotypical businessman and a couple of marketing dudes and they don’t really seem to pose much of a threat to our titular hero. Though Ehale & Baruchel’s characters would argue that they were just doing their job - which would explain a lot.     

Other actors who are great are Jackie Earl Haley who is totally brutal in this and .

RoboCop is  , 3/5.

The Anonymous Critic.