I am a huge Robocop fan. As I write this review I am
rocking out to the original theme music, why you may ask? Because it rocks that’s
why! (That and the new film only used it twice and got it stuck in my head). I
was really nervous about this film. I love Robocop and I didn’t want another
bad film to tarnish his name like Robocop 3 did. Was I disappointed in this
remake of an awesome classic? Let’s review Robocop.
The Negative
There is a significantly slower plot movement after Alex
Murphy is transformed into Robocop. The film just slows to a grinding halt at
this point. The original film barely went into the details of his construction
and training, but this new film wants to nail in every single moment. I
understand that the film wanted to go through this process to fully explain
what was happening in this plotline and how it was different from the original
film, but hurry it up a little. The second we see him as Robocop, we want to
see him patrolling the streets of Detroit, but this film just took its time getting there.
Way too slow.
I hate to keep comparing to the original film, but this is a remake, it’s simply going to happen. The original film was filled to the brim with the corruption that was flowing through society, bureaucrats, and politicians. This new film still has that, but it is significantly toned down. The original Robocop always felt like he was sitting in a den of snakes, the only trustworthy person with him was his partner Lewis, in the new film, Robocop has a lot more allies and it just seems like a friendlier film. The brutality of the world that the original Robocop existed in justified his existence; the new film has very obvious snakes in the grass and very obvious golden people who you can always rely on and I feel that the film is worse off for it.
Why did they have to switch the gender of Robocop’s
partner? There are significantly more male action heroes out there than there
are female action heroes. I think it is a very big issue in writing right now,
that stories have men outnumber women 10-1. There is actually only 4 important
female characters in this film and that is being generous with the word
important. To be fair they also switched the Detroit police chief into a female
character, but I feel as though the loss of Anne Lewis is more
significant than the barely present police chief. The original Robocop is one
of my all time favorite films and I really like the fact that it has a powerful female
action hero as Robocop’s partner. I honestly feel that ‘Jack Lewis’ in the new
film didn't add anything crucial to the role that required him to be male. He just felt like a placeholder for
the buddy cop role. The fact is we need more strong female roles in stories,
and the character of Officer Anne Lewis was sorely missed in this remake.
The Positive
The human element is significantly amped up in this
remake. A major change to the plot is that OmniCorp has the ability to switch
off Robocop’s emotional human side, and turn on an efficient killing machine to
tackle the crime in the city at any time. This plot was never explored in the original
series. Alex Murphy’s family are major characters in this story when they
barely appeared in the original. I loved that this was the plot they decided to
explore with this remake as this was something that they couldn’t actually
explore with the original series. In the original Robocop film, Murphy is
already the emotionless Robocop right from the get go and his family had moved
away. This film shows the actual grieving family and Murphy’s problems with
trying to be the man he was while still being over-written by OmniCorp’s
programming and it is used to brilliant effect.
The action scenes were AWESOME! Just like zombies before
him, Robocop has finally learned to run. The original Robocop was a walking
tank that efficiently took out every enemy as he made his way across the
battlefield, this Robocop does that…but at the blinding speed of a NINJA! The fight scenes
are unfortunately few and far between, but when they do show up they are a spectacle to watch, especially one of the final fight scenes where
Robocop takes on a swarm of ED-209s. In the original series Robocop never
really fought ED-209 one on one in a real fight, but here Robocop lets them
have it and it is amazing.
In
Conclusion
This could have been much worse. It seems today that all
the film industry seems to be putting out is remakes, and many of them haven’t
been very good. This film, I feel, actually explores something that the
original couldn’t have and I believe that it pulls that off really well. This
could have easily just have been a rehash of the original but for better or for
worse this film really tries to break the mold of the original without
tarnishing its legacy. This is what a reboot should do, it should explore new
territory without breaking the original intent and that is what this film
accomplishes for the most part. If you are a Robocop fan like I am, perhaps you
will enjoy it as much as I have. 4 out of 5.
