By Geno McGahee
In 1987, I was 13-years-old and a great movie was released to the cinemas. I would have to wait a year before it made it to the video stores and I was able to rent the film and find out what the fuss was about. It was edgy, funny and violent and, over the years, I have not lost my love for that film. When I heard that they were remaking it, I wasn’t too excited about it. After all, Hollywood has not gotten better over the years. The reliance on CGI over story has the output less than fantastic, but despite my thoughts about film losing its way, I could not resist buying ROBOCOP. It was a risk buying a movie sight unseen, but what is life without a little risk?
Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is a great cop and has been working undercover with his partner to take down a big drug lord, but things don’t go as planned. He is sold down the river by some crooked cops and nearly killed in an attempted murder. He’s about ready to nail his hot wife and hears a noise and goes to investigate. Why Murphy?! Why?!!! What’s really sad is that he gets his junk blown clean off in the explosion that was meant to kill him. If you want to murder somebody and you end up missing the mark and just blow off their junk, that’s a success, even if they become a cyborg afterwards. You can always say: “Yes, you are now tougher, stronger, faster and smarter, but that don’t change that fact that you are dickless.” I don’t like the idea of a dickless Robocop, do you? Well, this one is dickless. They only saved his hands and his lungs.
So a new Robocop is born but it’s not meant to be something permanent. Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) has plans to use the Robocop as an instrument to get his robots on the street, removing the human factor from the law enforcement all together. Supporting his cause is talk show host, Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson), as he attempts to help and remove the law that prevents robots from roaming the streets and maintaining justice. Jackson is hilarious in this role.
Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman) is largely behind resurrecting Murphy and making Robocop, but he soon gets fed up with Sellars’s bullshit and finds out that there is a plan to kill Robocop once he serves his purpose. This doesn’t sit well with Norton and he just has that look that screams: “First, they make him dickless and now they want to kill him? Not on my watch.” Good for Norton.
One big disappointment here with this film is the lack of respect for the ED-209. He is the big robot that caused the original Robocop so much trouble, but here, we see them in the beginning and then in the end and Robocop is able to take down three of them without much issue. He gets beat up a smidge, but you never get the idea that these robots are beasts. They were turned into relative pussies here.
Another disappointment here is when Robocop kills Sellars. They are on top of a building and it’s only natural that you should knock the bad guy off of the building, but they opt to just have him drop dead from gunfire. How shitty. I would have loved to see Robocop shoot him and look down as he falls and then he could say: “Fuck you Mr. Mom.” Then they could make a Keaton cyborg and make a sequel where the two square off. Hell, the possibilities are endless. I guess they could still make Keaton a cyborg, but his junk wasn’t blown off like Robocop. I don’t think he’d have the needed fire in his belly to take on the robot cop.
ROBOCOP (2014) cannot be compared to the first, but it’s actually a pretty good movie. It starts off slowly but when it kicks into gear, it really gets moving and is quite entertaining. The CGI is pretty sharp and as he fights the bigger robots, it looks pretty sweet. I am not regretting purchasing this film after all. If you are a die hard fan of the first like I am, this one will be a treat. It respects the first one enough to give some shout-outs, and is different enough to stand alone. It didn’t try to remake the first. It re-imagined it and added some modern politics into it as well. It’s a winner. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 7.5/10 – Where’s my junk, creep.
Thanks for the review on Robocop. I’ve been waiting for somebody to say something about it. I’ll pick up a copy of the DVD when the price comes down a little. If nothing else, I’ll get to see Samuel L. Jackson ham it up and Michael Keaton (hey, he played Batman, too) do his thing.