Movie Review
Review RoboCop
RoboCop is a remake of the 1987 movie of the same name. After inspector Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is grievously injured in a bomb blast, he has little hope to survive. Alex's wife, Clara Murphy (Abbie Cornish) agrees to a procedure that fuses whatever's left of his body to a robotic exoskeleton to help him lead a normal life. The procedure is completed thanks to the funding & support of OmniCorp, an international company known for its advanced technology & services. OmniCorp's chief members including, Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman), Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), Rick Mattox (Jackie Earle Haley), Liz Kline (Jennifer Ehle) & Tom Pope (Jay Baruchel) are extremely proud of their latest technology who is part-man, part-robot. A new way to curb crime by offering a superior robotic police officer with otherworldly weapons & built-in surveillance, mapping & scanning technology. Everyone is extremely excited about this especially, famous TV news anchor, Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson). However, when Murphy breaks protocol & goes after the people who had attempted to murder him, it is up to OmniCorp & the police to stop RoboCop.
Relatively unknown actor, Joel Kinnaman is impressive as Alex Murphy/RoboCop. Gary Oldman is outstanding as Dr. Dennett Norton. He plays the role of morally compromised scientist perfectly, and is always the most interesting part of any scene he's in.
This version is more a cop story than robotics. What's on display delves into corporate corruption and skims the street crime underbelly. Its understandable the first part being slow and steady to give all proper meaning why Robocop is being made and then action . But action and chase being done just one way by Robocop and shown less was not good as movie makers should have devoted more time showing the capabilities of Robocop a lot more, and I felt it was shown all too fast .
The movie tries very hard to make the plot "make sense." And while it succeeds in connecting the dots very logically, it's so focused on making sure the plot makes sense that it forgets to sit back and let us feel for the characters. Like I said, the actors are great, but they aren't given a lot of unique dialogue or character to work with. The script is fairly generic- everyone is somewhat of a stereotype, and we don't spend long enough on any emotional beats to care that much about them. Similarly, the action is a bit sterile. None of the action scenes had me emotionally invested- it all felt like there was nothing at stake, or visually it was too hard to tell what was happening to get worked up.
The most disturbing part of the movie is SEEING him dismantled, boy what an horrific sight. Just lungs and a brain basically inside a plastic container. Really creepy and while it does add to the movie it also demonstrates how sick this movie concept really becomes. The thought of this happening in real life, ever, sickens me greatly. I personally would never want a RoboCop.
This lack of a true villain is perhaps one of the movies greatest flaws – especially when compared to previous incarnations. There were plenty of opportunities, though. Jackie Earle Haley has a somewhat commanding presence most of the times he enters the screen, but with what felt like less than 15 minutes screen time, it's not exactly like you're feeling too threatened by this "villain". Or like he's "established". The other antagonists suffer from different problems; either they only start turning against Robocop 20 minutes before the end of the movie or they are not threatening in any way.
In the end, you are left wanting since it's hard to tell what exactly happened in this movie. When you're trying to measure the emotions of someone who's sat through this movie, you'll see a flat-line since there's so little to get excited about... Considering that there are so many talented actors involved, this caused us to leave the cinema feeling extremely disappointed. It's far from being the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's not even solid entertainment because it falls flat on so many levels.
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