We're all agreed that the 1987 'Robocop' is a near flawless highlight of 80s pop culture right? It was the film that Tim Burton's 'Batman' should have been; an ultra-violent joyride with brains and laughs and gore. It was the closest thing we could get to Judge Dredd (unfilmed until 1995) on the big screen. It was my generation's 'Dirty Harry'. It was cyberpunk before we understood the term. It had a gritty, futuristic setting before it was fashionable and took an unblinking look at runaway corporate greed, corruption and privatization. It raised the bar for action movies, used it's genre trappings intelligently and worked equally well as political satire, media piss-take and comic book entertainment. If that wasn't enough, the story of a cyborg wreslting with suppressed memories was enough to keep University media courses talking about subjectivity, simulacrum, body/mind schisms and the end of modernity for decades. Beneath it all was a real emotional core: the story of a machine that discovers it was once a man and fights to regain the humanity that was lost.
The 2014 'Robocop' is basically just another man in an exoskeleton suit battling big robots story....because we've not had enough of those recently. The spoof commercials and black humour are gone, the direction is flat, the action repetitive and tired. It gets off to a great start with a satire of drone style military policing in a Middle East conflict zone and sets you up for a great ride but once we're past the titles it starts to lose it's way.
This time the film goes to great lengths to assure us what a great family man Murphy is, what a great cop he is and what a great sharpshooter he is before he is injured and the the armour is fitted. It's interminable and only made worse by the fact that Joel Kinnamon is not so much wooden, but just dull to watch. It makes you realise how truly great Peter Weller's performance was in the original.
In the first act of the Verhoeven's 1987 film we are introduced to a future world and rooting for an under resourced police dept battling against impossible odds as anarchic criminals run riot around Detroit. The villain is truly sadistic; we see Murphy's limbs blasted off at point blank range with shotguns. In addition we've laughed at the adverts of tomorrow, and seen a prototype war droid inadvertently blast away yuppies at a board meeting. In the first act of this film we've seen lots of kissy kissy stuff and lots of bang bang shooty bang bang stuff but it feels very TV movie, very safe. Then you realise that this is a 12A certificate film. No wonder it feels compromised. The original set a new standard for what levels of gore mainstream audiences would accept with their popcorn. When Murphy is politely killed offscreen (more or less) by a car explosion you know this film is going to have no bite. You know it's going to be just another 'superhero' film.
That said, there are still some queasy blood and guts scenes to savour when we see Alex Murphy quite literally stripped back to the living innards that still remain beneath the suit. It's a surreal image; both unforgettable and uncomfortable. The whole 'rebuilding' sequence is well done and the 'does the machine rule the man, or the man rule the machine?' premise sets up the drama for the rest of the film. Unfortunately it doesn't really pay off.
Once Robocop hits the streets the film becomes quite tedious again. It's not so much robocop as the missing Daft Punk brother on a bike. You half expect Nile Rodgers to pop up playing some funky guitar. As far as the music goes it has to be said that the soundtrack is fucking awful at times. There's a key action sequence scored to some yodelling. Yep, Robocop's first field test is scored to 'Hocus Pocus' by 70's Dutch prog rockers Focus. I'm sure Jeremy Clarkson would approve. It tells you where this film is coming from. It's all very Top Gear.
*spoilers*
The final act abandons all intelligence and opts instead for some 'running around shooting things with night vision goggles on' type footage and a showdown with the bigger, better war drones. On the rooftop finale Robocop recovers enough of Murphy's humanity to override his machine programming and shoot the big bad corporate bad guy. Because that's what humanity means. Obviously.
One day maybe I'll tell you my theory about how Robocop is really about a man who gets his dick shot off and then has to wear a big shiny helmeted dick suit to get his potency (wife and child) back but we'll save that for another day because I'm not sure this new version deserves such a brilliant reading.
What I must talk about is that terrible final scene. It's as if the makers suddenly remember that this this is supposed to be satire and graft on a rousing Samuel L. Jackson delivered speech about how America is the greatest country on Earth. I think we're supposed to 'get' how subversive and ironic it all is, but the thing is, it just doesn't play like that at all and leaves a badtaste in the mouth. It's a bad, misjudged note to end on. Still, at least Sam L Jackson saying "motherf**er" got the audience laughing for the first time. Shame it was 5 seconds before the end credits.
It is what it is - a big budget franchise reboot that doesn't improve on the original. I'm sure it's all very exciting if you're a 12 year old or never seen Robocop before. It's not without merit and could have been a lot, lot worse but I thought it was a 'watch it once' disappointment; okay but a missed opportunity.
Good Robocop Bad Robocop.
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