RoboCop (2014) Movie Blurb by Shale February 14, 2014 Yesterday I watched my DVD of the 1987 RoboCop in prep for this remaking of that movie. I saw this movie in theater in '87 and it was quite enjoyable with the technology and special effects of the day - no CGI, just stop motion models. However, when you view these 1980s movies like RoboCop and The Terminator after all these years you really notice the limited special effects that were the best we knew at the time. So, I ignore the wailing of the film purists and actually embrace these remakes of classic old movies. Especially futuristic science fiction that should have the futuristic special effects that we have now. The story runs similar to the original movie but is not the same. It opens in the near future with robotic soldiers, or drones already deployed in the Middle East along with the big guns of the OmniCorp ED-209. OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) wants to deploy them in the U.S. but there is a law preventing that. All of this is reported by Talk Video Host Pat Novak (Laurence Fishburne ... uh, I mean Samuel L. Jackson). ED-209 & Drones in Afghanistan Officer Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is on the Detroit Police Dept. taking down bad guys and suspects some crooked cops on the take. He is narrowing down on the crime boss when he gets blown to bits by a bomb in an assassination attempt. He doesn't die but is hanging on to life - one that will leave him with no legs, one arm, half blind, deaf and paralyzed. OmniCorp the private company that runs the Detroit Police Dept. with Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) convinces his wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) to let them save him by state-of-the-art robotics. RoboCop Meets Dr.Norton So, the new RoboCop will have contact with his wife and young son, despite the programming changes to make him more single-mindedly focused on crimestopping at the expense of his human feelings. RoboCop and Mrs. Murphy From here we go thru the same subterfuge within OmniCorp to make a profit with a drone army by using RoboCop Officer Murphy as a good PR model to sway public opinion. RoboCop at Work When things don't go exactly as planned, the corporate bosses start planning how to get rid of RoboCop and put good spin on it. Of course that means RoboCop gets to battle ED-209 units like he did in the earlier movie, as well as a gang of drones. I really liked the movie - the variation on the basic story and the improved special effects that make such a movie seem so seamless. While the original movie was a classic of the '80s, it is dated as a futuristic projection and this one fits better to how our dystopian world is moving. I highly recommend the new and improved RoboCop.
This was way better than i thought it would be, thanks mainly to Oldman. I love the original cos it was so nasty. This didnt have that sense of dread. But i did like the reasoning and politcs in the story as to why they needed a part human, and that keaton played a softie villian, that was fresh
PS, the guy that played Murphy, is it just me, or didnt he get good looking until it was just his face in the suit. At the start whn he's just in his flannelette shirt just looked ordinary and scrawny, but then later on he looked a lot better looking with his head in that thing. Probably.was.the flanno
Actually, while watching Joel Kinnaman in those first scenes I kept thinking "a replacement for Paul Walker." No, no one will replace that gorgeous Walker smile and blue eyes, but this guy has that uncommonly good looks on a common looking guy. (is that how I want to describe Walker?)
