RoboCop review

ROBOCOP:

WHILE IT LACKS THE EXTREME VIOLENCE OF ITS 1987 ORIGINAL, IT’S STILL A DECENT REMAKE, AND A LOT OF FUN!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

MGM/COLUMBIA PICTURES

Joel Kinnaman shooting it up as RoboCop

            YOUR MOVE CREEP!

            Everyone’s favorite half-man, half-robot cyborg of law enforcement is back in the new re-imagining of the classic 1987 action hit, RoboCop, directed by José Padilha (Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, Bus 174) and starring Joel Kinnaman (Easy Money, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Safe House) as the title character. While the remake lacks the bloody gunfire and violence of its 1987 counterpart, this is a fine attempt for a remake, it’s not a fantastic remake like True Grit but it’s definitely better than some other certain Hollywood remakes that keep coming out (The Haunting, Conan the Barbarian, Total Recall).

            In the near future, robots uphold the law and keep the world safe instead of human police officers. There are law-enforcing robots in every country on the planet, except for the United States of America who seem to have a problem with having them keep everything safe.

            That is until Detroit police detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is killed in an explosion. An organization known as Omnicorp steps in to bring him back to life as part of an experiment to put a man inside a machine to keep the country safe, which results in the unveiling of the law-enforcing cyborg, RoboCop.

            Armed with a semi-automatic pistol and massive strength and agility, RoboCop will preserve the peace and punish crime. He is powered with a computer system invented by Omnicorp and scientist; Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman-The Dark Knight trilogy, Harry Potter franchise, Bram Stoker’s Dracula) that allows his mind to be controlled by the system and helps him fight better when he’s on duty and outside the system Alex is in control.

            In time he slowly discovers who he really was and what happened the night he was killed and overrides the system to bring the men behind his murder to justice and stop the evil CEO of Omnicorp, Raymond Sellers (Michael Keaton-Batman, Batman Returns, Beetlejuice) from destroying his family.

            The film also stars the always entertaining, Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, The Avengers) as Pat Novak, the host of news series, The Novak Element and supporter of mechanized crime control, Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Dark Shadows) as Rick Mattox, a military tactician who trains RoboCop with his firearms, Jay Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon, This is the End) as the head of Omnicorp marketing, Tom Pope, and Abbie Cornish (Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Stop-Loss, Sucker Punch) as Alex’s wife, Clara Murphy.

            Overall this new re-imaging of RoboCop isn’t bad, plenty of gun-slinging action, explosions, and over-the-top special effects that we’ve all come to expect from a big sci-fi action flick like this. While I think this is a decent remake, I wouldn’t say it was as great as the original Peter Weller film; in fact my only problems with the movie were its lack of the extreme violence from the 1987 movie (I guess they wanted to widen the audience) and the climax is a little weak at the end.

            But with that said I still had fun watching this movie, even without the bloody violence from the original, there’s plenty of visually appealing effects, action-packed shooting scenes, and a decent portrayal of RoboCop, as far as remakes go this one is worth checking out if you’re curious…YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO COMPLY!

            THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION!