RoboCop (2014)

4.5 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  Likes “The Killing,” Not seen the original “RoboCop"

            He’s part robot, part cop, part regular guy, but the last part isn’t important enough to be in the title.  “RoboCop” is a big budget remake of the 1987 film of the same name.  I understand that film is a classic, but I wasn’t aware anyone was clamoring for a remake.  Considering how lifeless this one is, I doubt the filmmakers were even that interested.

            Set in near future Detroit, police officer Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) unsuccessfully goes after a well-connected gun dealer.  The dealer tries to kill Alex, and the attempt leaves him clinging to life.  At the same time, a massive company called OmniCorp is trying to sell the American public on the idea that robots can patrol the streets better than cops.  It’s worked abroad and made lots of money, but America is too “robo-phobic” to allow them here at home.  Hoping to sway public opinion, OmniCorp offers to save Alex by making him into a human-robot hybrid designed to act like their preexisting robot line.  Alex’s wife agrees, unaware that the company is more interested in selling their product than in saving Alex’s life.  Once Alex wakes up in his new robot body, these differing goals come to a head.

            It’s a pretty dense setup, and as clunky as I think my summary is, the film doesn’t do it any better.  It starts with what appears to be a slanted news program à la Fox News or MSNBC explaining how great OmniCorp robots are and how we should use them here at home.  They go back to this program multiple times throughout the movie to swiftly explain plot points, but the segments always feel separate from the rest of the movie.  Samuel L. Jackson tries his best as the host of the program to keep them entertaining, but exposition-filled monologues get old fast.  Alex’s setup doesn’t fare much better.  A series of oddly edited scenes establish that he’s a good cop and a loving husband/father.  Then he’s almost killed and the movie actually starts.

            As poor as the setup is, the plot never really gets much better.  It’s efficient, but often laughable.  Characters do dumb things.  Themes are explicitly stated.  The ending is inevitable.  They tried to throw in some twists to keep things interesting, but they’re either too easy to figure out or too absurd to make any sense.  This is the first screenplay credit for writer Joshua Zetumer, and it shows.  Although I must give him credit for working in some good one-liners for a little 80’s flair.

            The characters are all either inconsistent or underwritten, really holding back the few decent performances in the film.  Gary Oldman is the standout as the conflicted scientist who creates Alex’s robot body, and Joel Kinnaman delivers a solid performance as Alex.  Kinnaman also plays a cop on AMC’s “The Killing.”  Having seen both performances, I feel that he brought a lot from that role to flesh out Alex.  Michael Keaton as the CEO of OmniCorp goes over the top, and I wonder why no one looking at dailies noticed that Keaton and Oldman seem to be in two different films.

            The look of the film really makes it into something watchable.  Its visuals are detailed in a way the rest of the film isn’t.  When we see the explosion that nearly kills Alex, his body doesn’t just get engulfed in flames.  You can track him as he is blown off the screen.  All the action sequences are shot with that level of detail, which makes them all the more thrilling.  So as mindless counterprogramming to all the Valentine’s Day movies, this isn’t all bad.

Oh, and the RoboCop suit looks really cool.

Other Notes:

Ø  Every time Alex walked up to his son, I wanted Kinnaman to say “Hey little man.”

Ø  The sounds that the RoboCop suit makes when it moves or when someone touches it was a nice addition.

Ø  Jackie Earle Haley never gets to play a nice guy.