Robocop Reboot

[Rasofy]

Having watched Elite Squad 1 and 2, and based on its huge success in Brazil, I know José Padilha is a hell of a director... No wonder MGM gave him so many options and freedom. But I think he failed on this one (haven't watched). Too much technology involved, that's not his style. He is a master on the psychological/morality part of the plot, but when the main character is a robot, that's kinda pointless.

I hope the producers are able to at least recover the investment.

 

[Solar Plexus]

Having watched Elite Squad 1 and 2, and based on its huge success in Brazil, I know José Padilha is a hell of a director... No wonder MGM gave him so many options and freedom. But I think he failed on this one (haven't watched). Too much technology involved, that's not his style. He is a master on the psychological/morality part of the plot, but when the main character is a robot, that's kinda pointless.

I hope the producers are able to at least recover the investment.

I'm not familiar with the director, nor have I seen this movie, but perhaps the psychological/moral elements are what attracted him to the project. Robocop is, at his core, a human being trapped inside of a machine, much like Darth Vader.

 

[wolfy]

Having watched Elite Squad 1 and 2, and based on its huge success in Brazil, I know José Padilha is a hell of a director... No wonder MGM gave him so many options and freedom. But I think he failed on this one (haven't watched). Too much technology involved, that's not his style. He is a master on the psychological/morality part of the plot, but when the main character is a robot, that's kinda pointless.

I hope the producers are able to at least recover the investment.

I don't know, haven't seen it either. In the trailer it looked like there was a focus on the human element.

 

[The Ü™]

Well, I saw it last night. Nowhere near as bad as I expected, and certainly nowhere near as bad as the Total Recall remake, and eons better than Robocop 3. I liked the way Robocop was introduced in this one, but by the time of the climax, it steered into familiar territory. With its PG-13 rating, the movie, of course, plays it safe, and the real-world politics the film takes jabs at come across as lazy. Still, I thought the movie was pretty okay.

 

[Poindexter Arachnid]

Ironic. THE mainstream American picture that warned (more like prophesized, at this point) the corporate disintegration of American life has been repackaged as a soulless "blockbuster" to sell to the ignorant masses. We have come full circle, folks.

Will not be seeing this.

 

[SD45T-2]

The review I read said it featured Hocus Pocus by Focus, so I'm sure [MENTION=4945]EJCC[/MENTION] would enjoy it.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, I saw it last night. Nowhere near as bad as I expected, and certainly nowhere near as bad as the Total Recall remake, and eons better than Robocop 3. I liked the way Robocop was introduced in this one, but by the time of the climax, it steered into familiar territory. With its PG-13 rating, the movie, of course, plays it safe, and the real-world politics the film takes jabs at come across as lazy. Still, I thought the movie was pretty okay.

I didn't think it was a bad movie (although I liked Dredd better). And hey, I only paid $3.50 to see it, so that's a plus.

Some things I liked:
- The focus on the wife and kid, it was kind of glossed over in the original while here it was very central.
- Some cool money shots (like when they reveal how much of Alex is actually left).
- The higher tech of this iteration (with downloading the files into his brain... pretty wild).
- An even LARGER sense that Murphy is just a company asset, the way they can essentially first hard-wire the machine aspect of him to take over in combat situations (so he has the illusion of free will versus actually making the decisions), and then later when they change his dopamine balance so he becomes very machine-like. There might be a man in there somewhere, but they even toy around with that. Murphy in the first movie, after he was rebuilt, never really went through that -- he just reacquired a sense of himself and was constantly become more self-aware, whereas here he got dialed down more and more at the whims of the company.

Yet still sadly there's no real high plot point. Even the event that maimed Murphy doesn't have much emotional impact. And here a lot of the plot points just seem to happen without any real movement through an overreaching arc. It all felt rather flat. I actually was wondering what time it was, a number of times, which I don't view as a good sign. In the end, not much of the movie was actually memorable even if I have trouble picking out any terrible moments. The first movies had more flaws/silliness in spots but also was more memorable. I think the R rating might have helped here, tbh.

Samuel L. Jackson plays comic relief here. I did crack up at the end when he goes off on a shitfit on the scientist. That was amusing, he was so livid.

 

[Totenkindly]

Read this on IMDB:

Director Jose Padilha and actor Joel Kinnaman fought hard for an R rating, but due to the ever expanding budget, which went from a modest $60 million budget and ballooned to a $120 million budget, studio executives were forced to deliver a PG-13 rating in hopes to recoup the budget they had spent on the film. Throughout the course of filming, studio executives kept a close eye on Padilha, making sure he was going to deliver a PG-13 rating.

During production of the film, director José Padilha phoned friend and fellow Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles to confide in him his frustration in the lack of creative control he was allowed by the studio for the project. Padilha estimated that for every ten ideas he brought to the project, the studio refused nine, and went on to the describe the making of the film as "The worst experience of [his] life". When word of this conversation became public, in an effort to appease the studio Padilha released counter statements expressing satisfaction with the film.

Having seen the film, I wouldn't be surprised if these were both true.

I think the PG-13 rating was stupid and actually probably cost them money, as their target demographic doesn't have money anyway nor would be inclined to go, and the actual people who were fans of the old movie + have the money to spend automatically are turned off at the downgrade. A more ruthless movie would have actually been more interesting, this version kind of satisfied no one overall. It also did kind of feel like it was "written by committee" and as I noted had a plot that seemed rather flat.

 

[Bullet]

I just saw this movie and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. My expectations were pretty low due to its current rating on Rotten Tomatoes at 49%, but it's a good reminder than I can't always rely on the opinions of other people. I'm generally not too interested in action movies because they frequently lack any substance, but the action sequences weren't over the top and I like how they delved deeper into Murphy's family life and explored the emotional repercussions of his transformation. I also appreciated the ethical questions posed in the film as well as their political relevance. One thing that bothered me about the original was the excessive amount of violence, gore and profanity. Overall, this version seemed more mature, more thought-provoking and even darker in a certain sense, despite its PG-13 rating.

That's why I give this film two thumbs up.

Edit: Regarding Robocop, I particularly like British psychoanalyst Darian Leader's observation about the cultural notions of masculinity symbolized in Alex Murphy's transformation from a real man into an emotionless robot. RoboCop is one example of how the cinema has dealt with the problem of masculinity, showing us that to be a man requires more than having the body of a man: something symbolic that is not ultimately human must be added.