RoboCop is back on the beat

1987’s RoboCop is a classic action movie that successfully blends the typical action tropes of the day with a bit of wry satirical commentary on society. The film was also rated R for its sometimes hilariously over-the-top violence, and it made a star out of lead Peter Weller (and gave Nancy Allen an opportunity to remind everyone that she could do more than just appear in Brian De Palma movies, from whom she was divorced in 1984).

RoboCop was also Paul Verhoeven’s first major Hollywood film, which he followed up with Total Recall three years later. Total Recall was given the remake treatment in 2012 with less than successful result – due mainly to blowing the story’s central mystery in the first ten minutes – and now the same studio (Columbia) is dipping into Verhoeven’s back catalog with a remake of RoboCop. Does it suffer the same fate as Total Recall? (And is Basic Instinct next on the list?)

The new version of RoboCop uses the basic foundation of the story to get good cop Alex Murphy into the suit, but wisely – and mostly successfully – updates the story to address today’s society, especially the conversation about the use of drones. In this version, the year is 2028 and the US has deployed drones into other countries as peacekeeping measures, but some elected officials in Washington are adamantly against deploying these drones in the US, basically as a way to replace our cities’ human police force … you know, because human emotions sometimes get in the way of doing a job, which DC thinks is a necessity so that people aren’t just randomly killed by an unfeeling machine.

When Officer Murphy is nearly fatally wounded in a car bombing incident, the company developing the drones, OmniCorp, take their ideas to the next level by placing a man in the machine to have the best of both worlds and make the populace feel less threatened. The new Murphy looks to be a success until he starts remembering his own attempted murder and discovers those he trusted most may be complicit in that and the crimes that led to the bombing.

I was prepared for the worst with the RoboCop reboot because the original has become so ingrained in our pop culture. It’s hard to forget that suit, the voice, the (for the time) state-of-the-art effects, and Peter Weller’s performance. The radical changes made to Total Recall did it, and the audience, no favors, so how in the world could they even consider tampering with another classic?

For the most part, the film is much more successful than I had ever imagined it would be. Setting it in the near future and addressing our own current events helps the audience identify with the characters and situations. Murphy 2.0 is now played by Joel Kinnaman, an actor whose near anonymity (he stars in AMC’s The Killing) suits the role better than a big star would have. He can expertly turn the humanity of Murphy/RoboCop on and off at the flick of a switch and you believe him. It also helps that the two Robo suits (the first a silver homage to the original, the second a much more sleek black number) come off much more successfully in action on film than that black one ever did in the stills that had been released during production, giving the fanboys some major heebee-jeebees. I’m very happy that for the most part, RoboCop really does look like a robot (that right hand still bothers me though, as does not altering Kinnaman’s voice).

Kinnaman is also served well by his supporting cast including the always terrific Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael K. Williams, and Jay Baruchel. Samuel L. Jackson (who does not look good with hair!) plays a TV political pundit from the far right who gleeful beats the drum for drones in the US in the film’s attempts at satire. These segments can be chilling and humorous, but are sometimes awkwardly inserted into the film and don’t always mesh well with the action. I was also confused by Jennifer Ehle’s character. It was never clear if she was working with Oldman’s doctor or Keaton’s corporate head, or if she was just looking out for herself and playing all the angles. She’s just so blank all of the time that I had a hard time figuring her out. Abbie Cornish was also a bit weak as Murphy’s wife, trying mightily to seem emotionally distraught over her husband’s fate, but her steely resolve just made her seem cold and unfeeling, even when she tried to pump out a few tears. This is definitely a film where the men fare better than the women.

If the film has a single major flaw, it’s the presumably studio-imposed PG-13 rating. The original reveled in its violence, but the new version is forced to straddle an uncomfortable line between thousands of bullets being shot and people dying almost bloodlessly. The film’s climactic showdown is pretty anti-climactic simply because it’s so antiseptic that it just takes away all the thrill of the comeuppance for the audience. Perhaps there will be an R-rated version available on home video at some point, but studios forcing previously R-rated films to conform to PG-13 standards (purely for monetary reasons) does the filmmakers no favors.

The movie also takes just a bit too long to get the story rolling as we have to go through Murphy’s adjustment period with him before he is presented to the public. These scenes allow us time to get to know Oldman’s character, but it also results in a pretty hasty second half. As it is, RoboCop is different enough from the original to stand on its own and ends up being a much more successful remake than it had any right being.