Robocop (2014): His Review

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His Rating: 

“Dead or alive you’re coming with me.” was one of the most  iconic phrase’s from Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 RoboCop and luckily, like a few other things, gets a mention in the new 2014 RoboCop directed by little-known José Padilha. Yes, I suppose now would be a good time to mention that I cannot review the new RoboCop without referencing the old as that I’m a HUGE fan of the original.

LIST OF CHANGES FOR FANS OF THE ORIGINAL:

Okay, so in new RoboCop Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is a detective instead of a regular beat cop and his partner Lewis is now male (Michael K Williams) and plays, I would say, a slightly larger role then the original. ED-209 doesn’t growl, there’s no Kenny getting shot, no Clarance Boddicker, no Dick Jones, Murphy gets to see his family, drives a motorcycle instead of a car, has a human right hand, OCP doesn’t own the cops, etc.

FOR THE NEW FANS:

OmniCorp, run by evil Steve Jobs (Michael Keaton), wants to put robots on the street but the government and public won’t let him. What they need is a robot that knows what its like to be human. They need a cyborg or in this case a RoboCop. Enter the top candidate:

Alex Murphy is a good cop with a wife and son who gets seriously injured by a car bombing attempt on his life. His wife agrees to have him subjected to the RoboCop program to give him a better life. Problem? OmniCorp doesn’t need a slow thinking human they need a machine and will do whatever they need to to make Alex just a machine with an on/off switch for human interaction. Will Alex be able to trace down his attempted killer? Will he be able to master the machine or will the machine master the man? Watch to find out!

MOVING ON:

The original RoboCop is a movie for its time: its ultraviolent, heavily concerned with the power of corporations and rampant crime. I think the new RoboCop scaled up for our times as well: it touches on terrorism, corporate control, safety and a lot of times RoboCop doesn’t shoot people he just hits them with a tazer (as you may know use of force is a bit different know then in the 80’s). A major ball and chain though is its PG-13 rating which limits the amount of blood, curse words and of course violence.

Also, ladies, there’s really nothing of particular interest for you: there’s no six packs, no love triangles, and not much drama. Alex loves his wife and she loves him.

Samuel Jackson turns in a great performance as Bill O’Riley with hair, Michael Keaton is great as evil Steve Jobs (though I couldn’t stop seeing Beetlejuice in his performance), and Gary Oldman does a good job as Dr. Dennett Norton.

Unfortunately, overall, the new RoboCop could be boiled down to another action flick with some moments that make you think. It’s a good movie but it’s not great. It is better then the Total Recall remake not that that was particularly difficult to accomplish but since the originals were both directed by Paul Verhoeven the comparison is worth mentioning.

If you like action movies, corporate intrigue and don’t mind cops I recommend this new RoboCop movie. It’s not great but its good and I don’t think you’ll feel that your money was wasted by seeing it.

Written by Beef