It's a job to know where to begin. There's just so much wrong. I think one of the main problems is the rating of the film. The cinema release is 12A, which means that basically a kid of any age can watch it as long as they're accompanied by someone 18 or over. This severely limits what the film can show. But of course it greatly increases the number of people who can go and see it. And after all that's what matters, apparently. The original film was gritty, unapologetically violent, dark and funny. The new RoboCop is none of these things. Partly this is due to all the things that can't be shown of course, but mostly it's just because the plot and the writing is so weak. I may jump around a bit when I'm explaining what's wrong with this film. That may be because I'm not very good at writing reviews, but I think it's also fair to say that the film itself is rather disjointed. The original had a clear story and plot development. This film didn't seem to know what it was trying to be, or do.
So Murphy is the same honest cop with a wife and son, just as before. He has a partner called Lewis, although this time Lewis is a guy. Lewis seems to spend most of his time getting shot. But to be fair, Lewis got shot quite a bit in the original film too. They're trying to infiltrate this gun running organisation or something. Anyway, the baddies get tipped off that Lewis and Murphy are undercover cops and Lewis gets shot. But he survives after a little stay at the hospital.
Then we see Murphy at home with his wife and son. Murphy and his wife are just about to have sexytime when the car alarm goes off. Murphy goes down to switch it off and BOOM. Car blows up. This is another point where this film is just not as effective as the original. There's a disconnect here between the bad guys and Murphy. In the original film we see Murphy getting shot to shit by the bad guys. So when Murphy gets revenge on those bad guys, we're really rooting for him and can feel his anger. "I'm not arresting you anymore" is one of those classic lines that was great to hear, and we knew exactly what Murphy meant and felt. But in the new film, yes he goes after the bad guys, but it all feels a tad pointless really.
Another big difference here is that Murphy doesn't die. This was probably a way to get Murphy's wife involved in the story more. In the original film of course Murphy dies, so that's pretty much the end of his wife's involvement in the story. The police can do what they like with him. In this film his wife has to sign the consent forms for him to undergo his transformation.So Murphy wakes up from a nice dream where he's dancing with his wife to discover that he's now RoboCop. Yes, in this film they don't wipe his memory, or ever really refer to him as RoboCop. In this film he's still basically Alex Murphy. This is another problem. The core of the original film's story was that Murphy had lost his identity and his humanity, and the rest of the film is his journey to try and get those things back. During the original film Murphy talks about himself in the third person "Murphy had a wife and son". It's not until the very last word spoken in the film that we see Murphy has rediscovered his identity. But in the new film he never really loses his identity, or his wife and son for that matter. Yes he loses his body, but his memories and identity are still very much there.
This leads to another laughable scene in the new film. So they switch Murphy on and he freaks out and does a runner. This particular RoboCop model has the advantage of being able to be shut down remotely. So that's what they do. Back at the lab Murphy starts to get the picture of what he's become. But he wants to see exactly what he is. So cue a scene where they bring in a full length mirror (although quite honestly a shaving mirror would've sufficed) and they remove the RoboCop suit so Murphy can see himself. Murphy is essentially a head, a pair of lungs and a hand. But again, because of the target audience, it just looks comical. This was done I suspect so we're not left wondering exactly how much of Murphy is left. A scene like this was not necessary in the original film because we saw Murphy get turned into hamburger by the bad guys, so we knew there was nothing left.
It also begs the question why keep the hand? Surely another robotic hand would've been better, stronger and more robust than a human hand. It seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to keep a hand. I think that's part of the reason why when I see the new RoboCop design, it just looks like a guy in a suit. That was something you could never accuse the original of. I never once doubted that the original RoboCop was basically a robot. The suit design was fantastic. The new suit looks lame. It's got this cheap plastic looking flip down visor thing. Actually the whole suit looks rather cheap and nasty. Couple that with the human hand and that fact that his head doesn't seem to fit snugly in the suit and it just looks wrong. I could've forgiven this film a lot if RoboCop himself looked awesome, but he doesn't.
They put Murphy through his paces by fighting a lot of CGI robots. Murphy mostly shoots robots in this film. Again I suspect it's because of the target audience. He shoots a few people, but there's no blood. And it's certainly not squib city like it was in the original. The shooting sequences in this film are very sterile and CGI heavy. At several points I thought I was watching a video game. The realness of the original has gone. Even Detroit, which was a crime, drug and ho ridden cesspool of a place in the original film doesn't seem so bad in the new film. Murphy battles a few ED-209s at one point, but again it's very CGI heavy. The design of ED-209 has changed too, but not for the better. And they did the unthinkable. They changed ED-209's voice! He sounds nowhere near as menacing now. And he certainly doesn't growl any more. ED-209 is just a part of the scenery in this film and there's no iconic scene like there was in the original. Shame.
So Murphy fights crime and gets to visit his wife and son. I had a job believing the husband-wife relationship in this film. I thought the relationship between Murphy and Lewis in the original film portrayed more emotion and was far more believable. In my view it was an aspect of the film that didn't need to be there. After a while Murphy starts to get more of a sense of his self back, even though the guys at the lab try and suppress it through drugs. Murphy has the whole police department database in his memory, so he starts going about trying to solve his own attempted murder. The lab guys seem rather surprised by this. I don't know why, it seems pretty logical to me. If they didn't want him solving his own attempted murder then why not restrict the information?
Anyway, as always the head guy at OCP, or OmniCorp as it's now called turns out to be involved and there's lots of vice and corruption. The film culminates with Murphy trying to arrest the head of OmniCorp, while the head of OmniCorp is trying to get Murphy killed. Lewis is shot (again) while taking out a bad guy that was just about to finish off Murphy, but again Lewis is fine. The head of OmniCorp sends for Murphy's wife and son, and prematurely informs Murphy's wife that he's dead following a seizure. Murphy then shows up at the OmniCorp building. So the head of OmniCorp sends for a helicopter to take him and Murphy's wife and son away, hoping of course that Murphy will be killed before his wife sees him.
This is where Murphy battles a few ED-209s, but he prevails and gets to the roof of the OmniCorp building to discover the head of OmniCorp, his wife and his son there. The head of OmniCorp and Murphy shoot each other, but Murphy's shot is more accurate and the head of OmniCorp is killed. At the end of the film we see Murphy being lowered into a new RoboCop suit and then walking off with his wife and son.
There are things I haven't even mentioned yet. Like the annoying TV presenter guy that Samuel L. Jackson plays. Again, it's not very relevant to the film. And I for one am a little bit sick of seeing Samuel L. Jackson turn up in every bloody film going. Gary Oldman does a good enough job playing the lab guy, but we're not exactly talking stellar performances here, Murphy and his wife are both very wooden.
This film isn't a patch on the original. Currently on IMDb it has a score of 6.7 out of 10, and even that seems too high to me. You can call me a fanboy of the original film and to be honest, that's probably fair. I was 13 when RoboCop came out and I got it on video that Christmas. I was just at the right age for it to blow my mind. And it did. They didn't have to remake RoboCop, and they shouldn't have. But seeing as it was inevitable that they did, they should've gone for the violence, action and blood fest of the original, and not changed stuff just for the sake of changing it. People my age would've gone to see it, to hopefully have their minds blown again. And the kids would've watched it when it came to DVD anyway. And a new 18 certificate RoboCop would've had a much more lasting impact on them too I suspect.
But as it stands we have this rather weak remake. A remake that 27 years from now won't hold up anywhere near as well as the original film has. Do yourself a favour. Take the money you would've spent seeing this and go buy yourself the original instead. It's awesome. And yes, I am biased. As for RoboCop 2014? I'm sorry, but I wouldn't buy it. Not even for a dollar.
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