"Robocop" - - This Tin Man Has A Heart, But No Brain

Oh Robocop. How you influenced so many childhoods with your reckless violence. Back in the 80's and 90's, it was normal for an R-rated film to be made into toys and cartoons for kids. Rambo had his own cartoon, Aliens had it's own toy line, and Robocop had not one but two cartoon series along with a slew of action figures.



 "Robocop. Robocop. Roboooooooocop. Robocop. Robocop, Robooooocop. Oh Yeah. Robocop. Robocop. Robooooooooooocop. ROBOCOP!" Just in case you missed the lyrics.

So it's a little odd that an ultra-violent movie about the overreaching arm of corporate greed can become an animated series were Robocop has enough gadgets to have him promoted to Inspector, and then in turn become a PG-13 movie that spends half of it's time using animation in lieu of practical effects. But again, we're talking about an industry that turned a dark horror movie about a man eating plant into a Broadway musical, then back into a movie, then eventually into this:

My favorite episode is when the dentist
showed up high on laughing gas and pimp slapped Seymour.

But we're not here to discuss Hollywood's need to regurgitate it's product into every available medium. That's obvious and it's been said a hundred times over. The question is: "Is Robocop (2014), on it's own, a good movie?"

The answer, sadly, is no.





"Robocop" is the story of good cop/family man/generic white guy Alex Murphy. He has a loving family but works as a police officer in Detroit so he is surrounded by dirty cops. When he randomly stumbles upon a huge arms dealer, his partner is shot and he is blown up. 3 months later he is Robocop.

Now, not three months in real time, but it sure seemed like it. The first chunk of the movie moves slower than Robocop underwater.

The Winner: Rust!

We get to see Robocop locked into a bracket! We get to see Robocop jump from his point of view! We get to see Robocop destroy the lively hood of the Chinese farmers as his two ton frame stomps through rice patties! We get a 10 minute long vignette where we learn Robocop hesitates too much, so a doctor flies from China to America, and his boss says "He hesitates too much!" and the doctor flies back and pokes him in the brain and then the boss flies to China and says "Wow, he stopped hesitating!" Compelling! Couldn't they have handled this with some dialogue? Example:

Doctor: "My only concern is, his human mind will still act . . .well, human. He'll avoid gunfire. He'll hesitate, because that's what people do."

Boss: (Via Skype) "Do whatever you need to do to make him work."

Doctor: "But he'll be less human, and the point was to put a man in a suit."

Boss: "The point was to put a product on the streets, Doctor. Make him work."

There. You still get all the impact of those ten minutes in four lines. The doctor is concerned for Alex and the Boss just wants results. And what do you fill the next 9 minutes and 30 seconds with? Well, I don't know, maybe Robocop robocopping so ass all over Detroit?

"So the actions is coming soon, right?"
"Yeah, but first let's show Alex Murphy dreaming about dancing to Frank Sinatra."
"And then the action starts?"
"Uh . . .yeah. By action, you mean rice patties, right?"

The slow first half isn't the only problem though. As this nonsense droned  . . .ok wait, let me use that unintended pun to move to my second big point: The movie had no theme. Which is fine, actually, if you're not trying to have a serious theme. "Fast And Furious" isn't a dissertation on Mexican cartels. It's about fast cars. But "Robocop" kept trying to force themes, yes, multiple themes, and yet none of them went anywhere.

The first theme introduced, oddly enough, was the idea that drone technology is used as law enforcement in every country except America. And OmniCorp wants to change that because of money. But the problem is today, in 2014, drones are used for law enforcement. You could say, "Well sure they are, but robots aren't" but you're splitting hairs because in the movie they kept saying drones. So the movie builds up to this big Senate hearing about whether or not drones should be allowed to patrol American streets while I wouldn't be surprised if two drones and a Google Street View car tool my picture on the way to the theater. That Robocat is already of of the bag.

"Dead or alive, you're cuddling me."

The second theme, a favorite of filmmakers including the writer and director of the first one, was the evil of corporations. But while the first movie had OCP working on upping the crime rate so they could tear down Detroit to build New Detroit, this movie just had the company being . . . well a company. During the third act, the boss out of nowhere says "Eh, the vote passed, we can have drones in the street. Let's kill Robocop and you know what, I'll point a gun at his wife and kid, why not." This came completely out of nowhere. At no point before this in the movie did he 1) Order someone's murder 2) Commit any crimes what so ever and 3) Act in any way other than an American businessman.  It was almost like halfway through shooting the movie someone said "Hey, wasn't the business guy a bad guy in the first one" and they entire crew slapped their heads in unison Three\Stooges-style before hastily writing this last plot twist in. It's the equivalent if ten minutes before "Jobs" ended, Ashton Kutcher revealed every IPhone 5 was infested with pubic lice. It's just to make the audience ok with the fact of Robocop killing some guy who was never a threat at any other point in the movie. And the Boss guy (OK, I looked it up, his name is Sellars), built Robocop in the first place!

See, here's the problem: The first movie was a satire of the police state and America's love/hate relationship with fear and violence. The director of the original, Paul Verhoeven, called Robocop "The American Jesus." It was a grotesque action film that reflected back our fears of an out-of-control future. We rooted for the cop as he threw a millionaire out of a window and laughed as a street thug became coated in toxic waste. So it's like when the remake was greenlit, someone said "Oh, we better have all these real life themes and deep yet satirical ideas, because that's what they want." But since they didn't really have a theme, it just became a mixture of ideas like, well, like someone spilled toxic waste on the script then threw it out a window and whatever order the pages landed in became their final draft.

You know, I feel like I'm being harsh. The best thing I can say about this movie is that the director really knows how to shoot scenes involving motorcycles. That was awesome. But the fight scenes were almost completely animated. The one time Robocop fights people and not robots the bad guys shut off the lights so we get to see a night visioned Robocop shooting infrared goons. At what point did the bad guys think "Dude, let's shut the lights off, I doubt that robot with the robot face plate can see in the dark." The scene was played out that way, I believe, so they could do it all in CGI. Because it's cheaper than hiring stunt doubles and having to use squibs and explosives and all that other stuff that's you know, cool.

The best part of the movie . . .was in a different movie.

So the plot was weird and slow, the action was weak (aside from one short scene where Robocop fights
multiple ED-209s but even that was like watching a video game trailer) and overall the movie was just a dull slog though a mess of ideas. Most kids who saw the original Robocop still remember it fondly to this day. 20 plus years from now, kids will remember this "Robocop" as the time they realized their parents lied to them:

"Let's go see Robocop, son! It's going to be cool!"