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LTTP: RoboCop [2014] (Spoilers)

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S

Sephzilla

Member
robocop-remake-poster1.png


The original RoboCop is probably my favorite movie ever, and I'd argue that it's one of the better action movies of all time. I passed on seeing the remake in theaters because I felt that remaking/rebooting/rewhatever-ing RoboCop was completely unnecessary and after watching a couple of trailers I thought the movie looked pretty bad. Watching RoboCop 3 last month, however, kind of reset my standards on what a "bad RoboCop" movie is and I gave the reboot a try once it popped onto Netflix.

Eh, I'm glad I didn't pay money to see this in a theater.

This version of RoboCop isn't a bad movie, it's just not especially good. I'll say that I think this movie would be a little better if it wasn't called "RoboCop", because slapping that name onto the movie innately comes with certain expectations that this movie doesn't deliver on. Everything about this movie is very "play it safe" compared to the original (and RoboCop 2 for that matter) both in terms of story and in terms of violence. You never really get the sense that Murphy ever truly lost anything during his transition from man to machine, his family is still with him, he has his identity, his memory, and generally never loses his humanity. It screams "don't worry everyone, he's just fine he just needs to overcome the evil programming".

Speaking of the evil programming, OCP in this movie - ahem I mean OmniCorp - aren't very good villains. The make a bunch of decisions that make very little sense beyond being able to become plot points later on in the movie. Like the decision to keep Murphy away from his family isn't really explained or justified much at all and only serves as a reason for Murphy's wife to go to the press and get pissed at OCnotP later in the movie. Or the decision to upload the entire Detroit Police database into Murphy's brain moments before his first big public press appearance, it makes no in-universe sense and only happens in order to have that one moment where Murphy cold-shoulders his wife and kid (again to simply further a plot point later in the movie). Basically the OCnotP characters in this movie make stupid decisions that continuously create their own problems.

Near the start of the movie, they do seem to hit some of the same good satirical tones as the original. Sam Jackson's Pat Novak character starts off as a good parody of heavily bias American news, but as the movie goes on his blatant bias towards an agenda becomes so painfully obvious that it ruins the suspension of disbelief with the character. Michael Keaton's OCnotP CEO character is kind of the same way, he starts off as a believable Super-Steve Jobs type who eventually devolves into a pretty one-note bad guy.

The movie does attempt to make a few references to the original RoboCop, and honestly most of them fall flat. When RoboCop is training and being compared to a fully robotic drone one character shows how far behind Robo is and says "I wouldn't even buy that for a dollar". Like, fucking really? ED-209s are in this movie too, but they aren't the failure prone cool-in-concept drones like in the original and it ends up just making them glorified action scene fodder. Robo also throws the "dead or alive, you're coming with me" line in at the end of the movie but it doesn't really have any kind of symbolism or anything to it since Murphy never used it when he was a human - it's just there as a "hey guys remember RoboCop?" thing.

Also, the all-black RoboCop suit looks stupid as hell. It looks cheap, fake, and doesn't look convincing. I wish they would have stuck with the silver and black version that RoboCop uses at first, it looks like a good updated version of the original suit and also makes a convincing cyborg look - not a cheap Batman knockoff.

It's a 5 out of 10 movie, basically. It's not RoboCop 3 terrible, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's just kind of a boring movie. Hell, I'd say RoboCop 3 has more memorable parts than it (which isn't exactly a good thing, all things being equal). My RoboCop hierarchy would be RoboCop (original) > RoboCop 2 > RoboCop (2014) > RoboCop Prime Directives > RoboCop 3 > The Series
 
M

Makai

Member
The decision to make RoboCop more human was interesting. Instead of making him more relatable, it made him look like a sociopath.
 
F

Flo_Evans

Member
The dumbest thing to me was the flip up face shield.

The moment in the original when murphy is fixing himself and unscrews his "helmet" and we see the extent of his cyborg body/brain is amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csvY2ot01yA

There is basically no chance for a scene with this much weight in the 2014 version because he is constantly running around with a full human face.

I guess they tried with the "take it off" scene, but that still seemed to be "human trapped in cyborg body" horror than a cyborg dealing with who he is/was.

Ugh. Thanks for reminding me this piece of shit existed.
 
H

Hilbert

Deep into his 30th decade
I thought this movie brought up some really interesting questions about free will, and the ethics of drone warfare.


And then completely forgot about the questions.
 
L

Lmo911

Member
I agree with you on this one, having the RoboCop name attached actually hurts this movie. I think if this wasn't a RoboCop movie they could have gone more in depth in the themes they wanted to tackle instead of having to pay lip service to the series. The tone of the whole thing is just way off.

It's average at best. The scene I like the most was revealing exactly how much of Murphy was left. That was a cool idea, but the movie just doesn't carry through with it.
 
N

NotLiquid

Member
The most forgettable reboot I've ever seen.

I seriously forgot this movie even existed until this thread came back up. I guess it's a good thing it didn't completely ruin everything I loved about the original, instead it's just another bland, devoid-of-thought movie that actively avoids going deeper into the themes it raises.
 
C

Count of Monte Sawed-Off

un33dab@dpu$$y
It wasn't terrible, and better than the extremely dull Total Recall remake. But it wasn't all that good either. I saw it on Netflix too after safely avoiding it at the theater. I can now move on and forget it.
 
T

ThoseDeafMutes

Member
I liked a lot of decisions they made in the film. Updating it to be related to unmmanned weapon controversies makes sense. I don't mind the black suit either. I give it maybe a 6/10. Could have been much better, but to be blunt there was no chance it was going to be accepted by the fans of the original en masse. In my opinion the original isn't amazing to begin with, so I'll be crucified anyway!
 
H

HomerSimpson-Man

Member
It's kind of interesting the films takes sort of a reverse approaching for Murphy being Robocop, in which the original, he slowly regains his humanity, while in the new film it's sort of the opposite, it wasn't really lost and he becomes more and more machine like to be more effective as a weapon.

Omnicorp really weren't much villains. It felt kind of strung into when the movie didn't have a more core nasty villain piece like the original films to deal with, so it kind of felt like they threw them in the mix at the end making odd choices.
 
N

NullPointer

Member
Hilbert said:
I thought this movie brought up some really interesting questions about free will, and the ethics of drone warfare.

And then completely forgot about the questions.
Click to expand...
Yeah - it made a better use of the concept overall than the original - and handles that machine / human divide on several different levels and in interesting ways.

Edit: Some examples:

* Letting his condition sink in by having the Dr. slowly dismantle every body part in front of Murphy's eyes (cruel bastard) - disconnecting the spine, arms, chest, etc until all that was left was the head and lungs while Murphy lost his shit.
* Doping him up to suppress human urges so they could make the press event.
* Tweaking his programming so that he's got control over most of his actions except when he shifts to combat mode - where the machine fully takes over and allows no human second thoughts or hesitation.
* This Robocop is much more in line with the modern internet age and has access to a shitton of data in time, to the extent that standing in front of a crowd of people he immediately spotted a wanted fugitive and took him down. Nobody is safe from being taken down, at any time - a point made much better in the reboot.

But it does fall apart overall, and some of the scenes that go for the emotions made me wince instead.
 
N

NerdEyeBlind

Member
I enjoyed it. I certainly would be interested in seeing a sequel as long as the filmmakers are given the power to do what they want and not be tied down to honoring the original films.

NOBODY should be honoring Robo 3. Yikes.
 
C

cacildo

Member
Its really one of the forgotten movies

"Robocop remake!"
"Oh yeah... this really happened... god i dont remember anything about it except i didnt liked it"
 
J

Joe Shlabotnik

Banned
ThoseDeafMutes said:
I liked a lot of decisions they made in the film. Updating it to be related to unmmanned weapon controversies makes sense. I don't mind the black suit either. I give it maybe a 6/10. Could have been much better, but to be blunt there was no chance it was going to be accepted by the fans of the original en masse. In my opinion the original isn't amazing to begin with, so I'll be crucified anyway!
Click to expand...

Sure, but it doesn't do anything with it. It sort-of sets up satire about modern news media (like the original). It sort-of sets up questions about free will. But it doesn't do anything with anything. They're just reasons to not be a shot-for-shot remake of the original. The Samuel L. Jackson bits seem to have been left over from four draft revisions ago that they didn't want to let go of because they had him signed.

Full disclosure I think the original is easily one of the top twenty movies of the 1980s.
 
B

B_Spooky13

Member
If this was the original it would be 10 times better.. But it being a remake.. eh.. It seriously lost the charm of the original
 
J

jax

Banned
I wanted to see a film about the problems of the modern age in regards to robotic warfare last night. I saw Robocop. I wanted to see Chappie.

Fuck Robocop was awful. One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Good cast too. Weird.
 
B

BronsonLee

Member
Great reboot! Far superior to the original.

I haven't seen the original, so I'm full of shit there. This movie is ok.
 
SkylineRKR

SkylineRKR

Member
This movie is utter shit. Not as bad as Robocop 3, but that movie looked like low budget direct to video from the get go.

What this movie lacks, same goes for the Total Recall travesty, is the trademark Paul Verhoeven satire. It seems no one is capable of replicating this.

Paul Verhoeven understands Robocop. The first one was gritty, rock hard and a jab against society. But a product of its time also. The reboot is just a run of the mill sci fi action flick. You already know its shit when you see how Murphy is being assaulted in this one. Perhaps its also a product of its time, heh.
 
S

SpecX

Member
I agree this should not have been called Robocop, but with all the hate it got that caused me to avoid it, I actually enjoyed it for what it was once I stopped comparing it to the original. True there are things that don't fit in or make much sense to the overall story, but I think it sits at a solid 7/10 as a decent casual movie to experience.
 
W

Warm Machine

Member
PhantomZone said:
I would rather be lobotomized! :-D
Click to expand...

I tried to watch Robocop the other day and what I saw totally missed the point. I have to go back and watch it.

That Total Recall remake is pretty lame. The original told 4 concurrent stories and let the audience decide which was real. Also, Arnie managed a total sea change at the end of the film. Here nothing is really lost that cannot be replaced. As well the Robots thing was stupid as there already were robots on the other side.

I was hoping for a cool twist like the irradiated parts of the world were actually fine and the corporations just wanted to hem all of the people into two tiny spots on the planet.
 
K

Korigama

Member
The more I watched that remake, the more I thought the people who worked on it should've been assigned to a Deus Ex movie (around Human Revolution's timeframe) than it. This is more based on tone, themes, and aesthetics than believing they'd manage a story that's any more worthy of that franchise. I've seen worse, such as that godawful Total Recall remake, but that still doesn't make new RoboCop any good.
 
E

enigmatic_alex44

Whenever a game uses "middleware," I expect mediocrity. Just see how poor TLOU looks.
This movie was SOOOO bad. Like Razzies award bad.

My mistake for expecting another "surprise" (where you were expecting trash but were served an amazing movie) like Dredd.
 
Hoya Destroyer

Hoya Destroyer

Member
I have forgotten most of it, but I remember being disappointed by the lack of violence.
The part where we see there is nothing left of Murphy except for his head and lungs, was pretty intense though.
 
W

WillyFive

Member
The movie would have been fantastic if it focused on Keaton and his two other partners and had Robocop himself just be in the background as their topic of conversation.
 
S

Sojgat

Member
Really liked it. Best Robocop movie since the original.

I thought the CG for the suit was amazing (it's augmented in most shots, and a lot of the time it's a complete replacement). Only really found it unconvincing when he was jumping around.

zgfH8LQ.gif
 
A

antonz

Member
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would especially after all the hate for it.

It doesn't try to be Robocop scene by scene and instead establishes its own world that borrows elements of Robocop.
 
C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Hoya Destroyer said:
I have forgotten most of it, but I remember being disappointed by the lack of violence.
The part where we see there is nothing left of Murphy except for his head and lungs, was pretty intense though.
Click to expand...

That was, legitimately, the most terrifying thing I've seen on film. Extremely well done.
 
U

User 479360

Banned
It's airing on TMN, and I've been on the fence as to whether to PVR it or not. I mean, I used to like Robocop quite a bit as a kid, but I'm just not that into action movies anymore.
 
J

JB1981

Member
The first hour is actually quite solid. The whole affair goes to shit once he starts investigating his own death. The ending sucked but I didn't dislike it
 
G

gblues

Banned
Some good ideas, questionable execution.

Robocop 2014 suffers from intense PG13-ificiation, like what happened with Live Free or Die Hard. The over-the-top violence and biting satire got defanged, the "drone on domestic soil" plot goes nowhere interesting, and I agree with the poster who pointed out that the SLJ bits seem like they came from a different draft of the movie.

The black suit is just a standard Hollywood trope. The black suit represents "evil" RoboCop under control of OmniCorp. Also insert Hollywood racist subtext about how black = evil here--"be afraid of the big black robot-man"--and I'm only half-joking because this actually gets lampshaded when Murphy goes in to talk to his partner. At the end after he defeats the evil programming, he gets the silver suit.

All in all it smacks of executive meddling, with predictable, mealy-mouthed results. Not bad, but not controversial either.
 
J

Jedi2016

Member
I watched this last weekend, then went back and watched the original a few days ago. There's really no comparison.

It also reminded me of one other thing missing from the new one.. a good villain. It had the corporate bad guy, sure, but it had no one nearly as cool/awesome or as legitimately threatening as Kurtwood Smith's Clarence Boddicker.
 
T

Trey

Member
Like TDM and Nullpointer said, it introduced some interesting themes like free will and the escalation of domestic arms. It trailed off by the midpoint though. The action was standard (I really liked the lobby fight against the bipedal mechs), and everyone registered a safe acting performance.

I liked it, and I wasn't expecting to. I wasn't the biggest fan of the original though, so Robocop 2014 didn't have fierce nostalgia to live up to.
 
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