Imagine that you have been magically transported to the year 2028 where human sized robots abound, doing every possible mundane task from flipping hamburgers to policing your local neighborhood and you get a sense what’s coming in this new version of “RoboCop.”
Less than man and more than machine, this is a poor-man’s remake of the original 1987 sci-fi actioner that had a great cast and ever better “RoboCop” in Peter Weller and his trusty policewoman sidekick Nancy Allen.
But that was then. Today we have a slicker and meaner OmniCorp (the mega-company behind all of these robots) that has changed the face of humanity by pumping out robotic technology that can do everything—seemingly—better than humans.
But microchips lack the wisdom and compassion we mortals possess. The next step? Mesh the two together; man and machine becoming one.
Enter police officer and family man Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) who is critically injured in a bomb blast that has blown off a leg and 4th degree burns over 90 percent of his body. A perfect human guinea pig to be poked, prodded and experimented on by the ruthless OmniCorp mad scientists until, like a toaster out pops–you guessed it–“RoboCop.”
Okay. Let’s just stop for just a moment and think about this. This remake of “RoboCop” that we have today was made to exploit the really great ’87 version directed by the great Paul Verhoeven which had at its core the excesses of capitalism.
Now we have an OmniCorp on steroids that is interested in only total domination. Geez. We suppose there would be no need for a RoboCop if the OmniCorp of this souped-up version has a decent Corporate Social Responsibility program that handed out free food and ordered its robots to take up hammers and nails to build up society instead of tearing it down.
Like the machines made by OmniCorp, this is a soulless and heartless film and at its core is the wanton desire to terminate as many desperately poor humans, driven to a life of crime by this self-same global corporation.
Special effects aside, Brazilian director José Padilha was wise to bring in Michael Keaton (“Batman”) as Raymond Sellars, the passionate leader of OmniCorp who, if anyone reading this is currently studying for their MBA, should be your polar opposite.
But at the beating heart of this remake of RoboCop is the ice cold fact that beyond the whiz-bag technology and computer graphics, Joel Kinnaman is no
Peter Weller. He simply does not have the acting chops of Weller who walked around as if in a never ending living nightmare—not lying on a hospital bed but inside a metal carcass. Weller always retained the great dead pan humor that made “RoboCop” and its two sequels a fun time at the movies.
No, Kinnaman is merely a tool and plaything for the corporation’s super scientist Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) and frankly, the robots of this 2014 version of “RoboCop” look downright silly. Director Padilha should have hired “Elysium” director and robot wizard Neill Blomkamp to bring in his crew of technical warlocks and bring real-life grittiness to this outing.
Instead, every theatergoer would have had a far better experience having Weller, 66, once again don the RoboCop metal and voice those now immortal words: “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”