It's the year 2028 in futuristic Detroit. Advanced Robot technology is spearheaded by a massive corporation: OmniCorp. Their drones are utilized heavily overseas by law enforcement, but the market is becoming saturated. In order to grow the company and please shareholders, the only option remaining is to utilize their robots at home. But their efforts are met with heavy resistance, as politicians and the American people struggle to accept the idea of robots enforcing the law without any human reasoning. An OmniCorp scientist (Gary Oldman) is left at a standstill; how do you put a man inside a machine? When police officer Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnamon) suffers a horrific accident, it provides OmniCorp with an unprecedented opportunity.
What am I missing here? This was panned by the critics, yet to my surprise I enjoyed it. I haven't seen the original RoboCop in some time, so I went in without any biases or expectations; I viewed this as it's own film and didn't compare it to the original. I thought it had a great balance of action, great special effects, meaningful drama and believable characters that made it resonate. Joel Kinnamon (Alex Murphy), Gary Oldman (Dr. Denneth Norton), Michael Keaton (Raymond Sellars) and Abbie Cornish (Clara Murphy) all put in some very good performances; the cast was very strong and they made the film better than it probably should have been.
The film takes some time to add some depth to Alex Murphy; his conflict between duty and his family was palpable and effective. The re-imagined soundtrack was very impressive and there were some interesting social commentary on the lengths we're willing to go for security (as did the original film). It's not perfect however. Samuel Jackson's pro-gun Pat Novak was just way over the top and it did have a few plot holes (the script could've also been a bit better). Some things also didn't quite make any sense; even in this futuristic world, the parts of Alex Murphy's body that they were able to be salvaged and reused seemed a bit implausible (to say the least). Having said that, watch it with reasonable expectations and I think you'll enjoy this quite a bit. I thought this was a pretty good reboot and worth watching. I definitely saw enough to be interested in the new franchise going forward.
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Blog: www.themoviesnob.ca
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Twitter: @the_movie_snob
What am I missing here? This was panned by the critics, yet to my surprise I enjoyed it. I haven't seen the original RoboCop in some time, so I went in without any biases or expectations; I viewed this as it's own film and didn't compare it to the original. I thought it had a great balance of action, great special effects, meaningful drama and believable characters that made it resonate. Joel Kinnamon (Alex Murphy), Gary Oldman (Dr. Denneth Norton), Michael Keaton (Raymond Sellars) and Abbie Cornish (Clara Murphy) all put in some very good performances; the cast was very strong and they made the film better than it probably should have been.
The film takes some time to add some depth to Alex Murphy; his conflict between duty and his family was palpable and effective. The re-imagined soundtrack was very impressive and there were some interesting social commentary on the lengths we're willing to go for security (as did the original film). It's not perfect however. Samuel Jackson's pro-gun Pat Novak was just way over the top and it did have a few plot holes (the script could've also been a bit better). Some things also didn't quite make any sense; even in this futuristic world, the parts of Alex Murphy's body that they were able to be salvaged and reused seemed a bit implausible (to say the least). Having said that, watch it with reasonable expectations and I think you'll enjoy this quite a bit. I thought this was a pretty good reboot and worth watching. I definitely saw enough to be interested in the new franchise going forward.
Enjoyed my review? Keep in touch!
Blog: www.themoviesnob.ca
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCanadianMovieSnob
Twitter: @the_movie_snob