Robocop (2014) [Movie Review]

I went to the theater today to see a movie. I was either going to see The Monuments Men or Robocop. I choose Robocop since it is only a day old. I like to catch them as soon after release as possible. I still have plans to see The Monuments Men, so no worries there.

Welcome to Tehran... we have robot patrols.

I have seen the original Robocop many times, not as many as some of the classic 80's sci-fi like Terminator, but enough. I mean come on, Peter Weller's death in the original is one of the silliest and goriest deaths of a protagonist. It was a Paul Verhoven signature blood-explosion.

The new take on Robocop, directed by José Padilha, is a a true remake. It retains a lot of elements from the original while updating the content and expanding on many themes. A lot of so called remakes are actually reinterpretations or total revisions, this is much closer to a true remake. However do not be under the illusion that there are no changes. There are several, and that is where this review will begin.

3.5 out of 5 stars

ED-209 all updated, and in Tehran.

A good chunk of the main cast. Some good actors there.

The first thing to note out of the gate is that Robocop (1987) was rated R, thanks to Verhoven's liberal use of cursing and over the top blood baths. Robocop (2014) is merely PG-13. The violence is toned down, heck Robocop does carry a lethal weapon, but instead of his old rapid fire machine pistol from the original, his new primary weapon is a pistol that fires a 50,000 volt stun charge. Sure that could kill, could seriously mess up your body, but it is not nearly as lethal as the old machine pistol. This means less blood, a lot less blood. Language has also been toned down, but they use this as a comedic element. Samuel L. Jackson gets to, once again. use his famous 'Mother F*ck*r' line but in the movie it is rendered as 'Mother -BEEP-.' He is hosting a cable television news show after all. 

Another huge change is Alex Murphy's family, (Alex Murphy is the man who is Robocop, just a heads up), which in the original is mentioned in a grand total of TWO scenes. In the remake his family plays a very large roll, he has a wife with screen presence and plot points, and a son who likes hockey. His family is the emotional crux of the movie. However introducing us to his family take a good chunk of the first half the movie... it does make it drag a touch as we spend a lot more time on background, not even getting to the rising action.  

MD-208.

Then there is a role gender swap. In the original Robocop, Alex's partner is Anne Lewis. In the new one it is Jack Lewis. The gender swap worked just fine in Battlestar Galactica, and it works just fine here too. It neither adds to nor detracts from the movie. Heck, if I hadn't watched the original recently, I might not have noticed.

The cause of Murphy's demise and rebirth as a robotic policeman are different, but I'm not going to spoil that. I will say that the new one is a lot less bloody, but is also more modern and fits with an expanded theme of the new movie.
 

Is Gary Oldman actually that short?

There are changes in the nature of the robotic suit that encases Murphy as well. The simplest is the color. While we see the classic silver/grey body, we see a new 'tactical' black suit. The screen time is pretty evenly split between the two suits, but they are actually more than a simple color shift, they are a symbolic shift for the character. Spoiler: (While he is silver, he is human. When his is black he is a product, a robot.) If you wanna read it, mouse over. Duh.

There are also changes to aspects of the way Robocop is programmed. In the original, Murphy has almost no memory of his life before being a robot. Having invested so much screen time into creating a family for Murphy the new film keeps his memory intact, in fact it uses the family heavily for pathos.

Checking. Yes. I still have 'Righty.'

Robocops means of transport also changes, and I'm not even really sure this is anything beyond aesthetic. In the 1987 movie he drove around in a modified cop car, in the 2014 he has a sleek motorcycle that is covered in blues and twos. It is a change, but honestly it is mostly cosmetic. 

The Novak Element. Not a play on the O'Reilly Factor at all...

Perhaps the biggest change is the nature of the corporation. In 1987 OCP is just beginning to produce the ED-209 security robots. It's trying to sell them. In 2014 Omnicorp (a subsidy of Omni Consumer Prodcuts) has successfully deployed ED-209s, EM-208s, and XT-908s in foreign countries to do peace keeping. Omnicorp is a big international corporation, delivering its military hardware all over.  

Integrated thigh holster is still there. Not half as important.

And here at last is the final and most important change - the social commentary. In Paul Verhoven's 1987 Robocop, he was satirizing the then modern American culture. He was making mock of the Star Wars Program, the American automobile (Buy the 6000 SUX it gets 8.2 mpg!), American consumerism, and American greed in general. He pokes a light bit of fun at the early morning talk shows too... 

1987 - Paul Verhoven predicts the average mpg of the SUV.

The 2014 Robocop takes on a whole new bag of social commentary. It asks far deeper questions and really highlights a lot issues. At the forefront is the American obsession with National Security. There is a line in the movie which goes something like, and this is just a paraphrase, 'To those who say we're losing freedom for security, Stop Whining!' There is also a lot of commentary on Drone strikes. Autonomous war machines in foreign territory, raining death - in Robocop it is patrols of ED-209s and EM-208s... in the modern world, it is Predators. The question is: 'What moral authority does a robot have to take human life.' There are also issues concerning privacy, global imperialism, and the way the cable news networks behave.  The new Robocop shows how modern cable news networks, especially a certain one, are extremely biased even to the point of shouting or cutting off opposing view points. They also show the cable news networks, represented in Robocop (2014) by a show called The Novak Element, as being controlled or at least paid for by the big corporations, and that the media is not out to inform the people but to shill for the companies.

Of course the philosophical element of the movie was very interesting from my perspective. There is a minor discussion about what it means to be human. They are, in the movies context, talking about how you are still a human even if you've lost both legs and they are robotic, or hands, whatever. So what about if you lose everything but your face and brain... and lungs? This is edging ever closer to a Sorites Paradox. How many grains of sand can be removed, one at a time, until a heap is not a heap? How much can be taken away before a human is not a human? The film never answers the question, because for the film it does not really matter. There is the line between man and machine that they talk about, and they do some questionable science-y stuff there... but it does not really act as anything more than a Chekhov's gun.

Feb 12 USA... half the world saw it earlier.

Overall I rather enjoyed the new Robocop (2014), in fact the more I dwell on it the better I think it was. There is still a few niggling irritations, the use of a constantly moving camera in scenes that do not need it... a lack of score in a few scenes that seemed weird, and the fact that the entire 'at home' sequence felt like a bad Hollywood attempt at making home-movies. Those scenes just felt weird...

There were some good tips-of-the-hat to the original, down to even including the original Robocop (1987) theme music. For cinema theme music fans, this was awesome. Robocop (2014) also used several of the tag lines from the original film such as "Dead or alive, you're coming with me," and they changed up the 1987 "I'd buy that for a dollar," to "I would not buy that, even for a dollar."     
 I enjoyed the movie, and for me that is what really counts.