Director: José Padilha
Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley and Samuel L. Jackson
With three movies, two TV series and two animated shows in its archives, it was only a matter of time before the RoboCop franchise got a reboot. And now, 27 years after they were first brought back to life, the remains of Officer Alex Murphy have been reanimated for our viewing pleasure once again.
It’s 2028 and Detroit is a crime-riddled city in decline… which is pretty much its present situation, coincidentally. Drones have been used by the military for years in overseas operations and the manufacturer of these robots, OmniCorp, has begun a fight to put their robots on the ground in the United States, taking on police duties (and boosting the company’s profits). An act of Congress holds this back, however, based on the principle that drones feel no emotions and shouldn’t be permitted to pull the trigger. Meanwhile, Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), a front line police officer, is on the trail of one of the city’s biggest crime figures. That is until he is nearly killed by a bomb planted in his car. His options are limited — die, or become OmniCorp’s first cyborg with human emotions.
The problems for RoboCop compared to other, more successful, reboots are clear from early on. Right off the bat, it’s too safe. The RoboCop of 1987 was rated R (by American standards), and this was down from an original X rating. Let’s be honest, no one is going to watch this movie for its nuanced portraits of the human condition, and 2014’s RoboCop has been neutered to a PG-13 rating, which means less good old blood and guts violence. It’s almost as if there was an annoying studio executive with a grating, whiny voice, looking over the whole production. “But guuuysssss, think of the kids… we’ve got to sell this to this kids.”
Alright, so maybe we’ve all matured as a society and don’t need our action movies to be as gory as they used to be. How about some biting satire then? That’s another claim to fame of the 1987 film. With so much material from the present day ripe for the picking, the safe route is taken once again. RoboCop hints at some genuinely interesting themes – What makes us human? What makes us alive? What are the implications of using drones in conflicts and crime control? – and it even takes a dig at the way the US outsources its tech manufacturing to China, but these questions are glossed over with wit as blunt as a soup spoon. “But guuuyssss, are you sure people will get all this philosophical stuff?”
That’s the biggest flaw of this reincarnated RoboCop. It takes the 80s out of the franchise, removing its soul, and doesn’t replace it with enough substance to make it a product of this generation. Cliches about bad judgement with hair, clothes and music aside, the decade was about things we claimed to hate, but loved anyway, and there’s very little to love or remember here.“But come on fellasssss, he’s got a cool new suit! It’s black! That’s enough right?”
There’re also too many clumsily executed plot points and too many stock characters; combining to make a potentially gritty and hard-hitting film a drab, commitment-free affair. It is a script that reeks of a hundred and one rewrites; looking at the numerous changes in director, lead actors and release dates the movie has gone through, it’s easy to see how this happened. With a cast that ended up including the likes of Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson and Jay Baruchel, there was a golden opportunity for some humour to be thrown in, yet we only get a couple of amusing moments in the movie’s 118 minutes. Keaton does show some potential as a white-collar antagonist, though, and Jackson’s performance as a slightly looney, right wing host will surely have the folks at Fox News loitering outside his home.
Don’t get us wrong, there will be worse movies this year. RoboCop is harmless and occasionally entertaining, but that’s just not what we needed it to be.
In a Word: Cop-out
