I'm a fan of the original 'RoboCop' movie I find it to be fun, satirical, enjoyably violent and overall very good. Naturally, I wasn't very thrilled when I heard it was getting a remake. I was even less thrilled when I heard the remake will be rated PG-13. I mean how can you make a 'RoboCop' movie without excessive violence and blood squibs? Now that I have seen the movie, I can freely say that the PG-13 rating is the least of this movie's problems. Initially, I didn't want to compare the remake to the original, I wanted to view it and review it as a stand-alone movie. Now that I have seen it, I think I'll have to compare the two movies after all, since the remake possesses none of the qualities that made the original such a classic, and by simple comparison I can easily explain why the remake is an utterly flawed and ridiculous movie. The movie opens with a political show, called the Novak Element, led by the host Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson), during which we see a news footage of OmniCorp droids (including the famous ED-209 and the freshly introduced humanoid drones called ED-208) patrolling and inspecting the streets of some Islamic state. Novak compliments the droids and then starts attacking The Dreyfuss Act a law that forbids the deployment of such drones in the USA. We are then introduced to Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), the CEO of OmniCorp, who is trying to find ways of tricking The Dreyfuss Act and start deploying his products in the USA. He gets the idea of incorporating both man and machine into an ultimate law enforcement product. We are then introduced to our protagonist Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) who is soon heavily injured in an explosion and is used as a guinea pig in this newest OmniCorp program. Like I said before: the 'RoboCop' remake lacks everything that was good in the original movie. First of all, there's no worthy satire in the movie. Society is sometimes mocked through the character of Pat Novak, but the satire isn't very subtle nor intelligent actually, I'd say it is very primitive and expeditionary. Second of all, the nature of Robocop's character is very different from the original movie; he's not a robot, but more a man in a robotic suit, and his family plays a fairly big role in the movie. And I would be perfectly fine with these changes if the main actor, Joel Kinnaman, didn't have the charisma of a paper bag and could, as a matter of fact, act (!), and if Abbie Cornish (who plays the role of Alex Murphy's wife Clara Murphy) wasn't so irritatingly bland. The revelation of the RoboCop suit and the suit itself were also poorly done. In one scene, Michael Keaton's character criticizes the suit design that appeared in the original movie by saying something along these lines: the original suit wasn't tactical enough. Well, at least the original suit didn't look like a black dildo! The villains in the movie didn't get a much better treatment, either. Among the several villains that appeared in the movie, none was memorable or even remotely interesting. But, to be fair, not everything sucks about the 'RoboCop' remake. Some of the acting was OK (mostly by experienced actors like Jackson, Keaton and Oldman) and the special effects did look really good. But what's the use of awesome special effects when the majority of the movie's boring and tedious? Add to all the aforementioned flaws the PG-13 rating, which destroyed the potential of some scenes, and you'll get one weak and forgettable movie. In the original, one of the most memorable lines goes 'I'd buy that for a dollar'. In addition to butchering everything else, the remake also butchered this line. In one scene, Jackie Earle Haley's character Mattox bashes the concept of Robocop saying he 'wouldn't buy that for a dollar'. As for myself, if I knew upon purchasing my ticket what horrors were awaiting, I wouldn't have bought it for a dollar. Rating: 4/10
Review of RoboCop
