Movie Review: RoboCop (2014)

RoboCop (2014) 

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia Pictures, Strike Entertainment, USA, 2014. 

Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson) hosts a TV newsmagazine "Novak Elements," that serves as Omnicorp company propaganda outlet. USA is bringing democracy to Iran using ED-209 battle droids. As using droids saves soldiers' lives, why not use them in USA also? Omnicorp boss Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) is trying to get droid law enforcement to be allowed in USA but Senator Dreyfus (Zach Grenier) and most of the Senate will not allow completely robotic killing machines to be used. Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) is specialist of cybernetic prosthetics. Sellars wants Norton to build a partially human law enforcer. 

Pat Novak

Raymond Sellars

Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is a Detroit cop. He is trying to arrest master criminal Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow) with his partner Lewis (Michael Kenneth Williams). There is a mole in the police force and they are betrayed. Murphy is severely injured in explosion. The useful parts of Murphy are connected to cybernetic suit and he becomes RoboCop! When Murphy sees how little is left of him (about as much as what is left of the original "RoboCop" movie)  he wants to die but Norton says that his family wants him to live. 

Alex Murphy

Scientist Jae Kim (Aimee Garcia) and RoboCop 1.0

Human feelings weaken RoboCop's efficiency so he needs updates. Also the exoskeleton gets a more military style look. Also the criminal records are loaded into the suit. This is a bit stupid, as the addresses of the fugitive criminals are in the databases but no-one has tried to arrest them. 

RoboCop 2.0

ED-209

Anyway, RoboCop starts efficiently clean Detroit's crime statistics but with the loss of his feelings Murphy's family life with his wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) and son David (John Paul Ruttan) suffers. Also it begins to bug Murphy that his attempted murder is still unsolved. 

José Padilha, Brazilian director of "Tropa de Elite" movies has proven to be able to direct tough and gritty movies with social critique. Paul Verhoeven's "RoboCop" was mean, fun, violent and satiric take on corrupt corporate America. The sequels declined steadily and the third movie was terrible. There were also TV-series and an animated series that was aimed at kids. 

The opening of the new "RoboCop" seems that there could be some satire coming. Then the story deteriorates to standard PG-13 action movie. Good actors are mostly wasted as the characters are very generic and dull. Murphy's partner Lewis is changed from woman of the original movie to man, and his role is very small compared to original movies. Kurtwood Smith played the memorable psychopathic villain Boddicker in the original, Vallon is a very generic villain. Omnicorp's droid and weapons expert Rick Mattox (Jackie Earle Haley) is slightly more interesting, but still no match to Boddick.

Samuel L. Jackson's Fox Channel style TV-host is fun for a moment, but can not compare with the silly TV-shows of the original "RoboCop." The few attempts at humour look awkward. There is nothing left of Verhoeven's pitch-black humour or gory violence. Also the satire against droid warfare is weak as the droids work perfectly but are operated by evil men after all. Overall the film looks like a standard Hollywood action picture with some okay action but with as much personality as a plastic bag.

Rick Mattox

The production was problematic and Darren Aranofsky's first version of the script was scrapped. Rumouredly Padilha would have wanted to do a different kind of film but the studio eliminated most of his ideas (http://screenrant.com/robocop-remake-director-jose-padilha-controversy-problems/)

Some of the DVD extras are Omnicorp product information video clips. Bet you did not know that ED-209 is eco-friendly and runs on solar power! 

Rating: Average 

Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Samuel L. Jackson, Aimee Garcia, Douglas Urbanski, John Paul Ruttan, Patrick Garrow, K.C. Collins, Daniel Kash, Zach Grenier, Maura Grierson, Stewart Arnott, Matt Cooke, Steve Cumyn, Noorin Gulamgaus, Marjan Neshat, Meysam Motazedi, Khaliya Hosein, Savana Hosein, Philip Akin, Paul Haywood, Adrian Griffin, Rick Hughes ,Raffi Altounian, Melanie Scrofano, Kelvin Wheeler, Alex Mallari Jr., Dwayne McLean, Tattiawna Jones, Wayne Downer, Robert Thomas, Jordan Johnson-Hinds ,Ian Peters, Ricardo Betancourt, Evan Stern, Ishan Morris 

Director: José Padilha