RoboCop Review
RYAN: This is the new remake of RoboCop and since I barely remember the first one, I thought it appropriate to include you, Michael, in this review since you’re an uber-fan of the original. I enjoyed this one because it has a great cast and is a sic-fi, superhero, action movie that raises a lot of interesting moral questions and has quite a pulse to it.
MICHAEL: Yes, an artificial pulse. This one is very different from the original because the world has changed so much since 1987. There’s more social commentary about how the media affects our lives and this plays better for the post-9/11 world.
RYAN: I like the issues in here about safety and how far we might go as a society and the political and emotional implications of important decisions. It also speaks to efficiency versus emotion and there’s a lot to think about if you want to. But I like this Joel Kinnaman as RoboCop. He’s a Swedish actor who’s best know for TV’s The Killing.
MICHAEL: He was really good. He’s a bit more of an everyman cop. One reason Peter Weller may have been cast as the original RoboCop is because he was so skinny and they needed someone to not make the suit look gigantic. But in this one, Joel looked a little more like a regular guy.
RYAN: That’s very interesting. And this movie was so effective at making him RoboCop, that I literally never once thought there was an actor in there wearing a robotic costume. I fully believed that it was all robot, with just, like, a human head, you know? The effects were so good.
MICHAEL: That was amazing. There was a lot of advance buzz for this movie on the choice to make it PG-13 versus R because the original was very violent and bloody and sexy. But this was a hard PG-13. There were moments and concepts in this new one that really pushed it to the edge; things you’ve never seen before.
RYAN: Right. We won’t do spoilers but there were some excellent things in this. I especially loved that The Wizard of Oz is heavily referenced in the film.
MICHAEL: I looked at you. I knew you’d love that. And the movie does pay homage to the original design of his look and the theme music was there which was awesome – I died! It was a few times but so poignant.
RYAN: I had expected it to be a straightforward action movie but it’s really a superhero origin story. It’s very much like Batman, Spider-Man, Kick-Ass…
MICHAEL: Yes and while the original explored a bit more about the origin of his story, this one was a bit scaled back; but still did go beyond the man inside the machine with his relationship to his family.
RYAN: I liked all the subplots and characters. There are some great actors here. I mean Michael Keaton, hello! Welcome back to the big screen.
MICHAEL: And he was in a role you wanna see him in. It wasn’t just comedy or typecasting. He was great. And Gary Oldman.
RYAN: He’s fantastic. I always love him. Samuel L. Jackson cracked me up. I don’t know how intentional that was, though.
MICHAEL: Jackie Earle Haley as the trainer, while he was good, I feel like they should have fleshed his character out more.
RYAN: He’s a good, name actor in a bit part. He fit the place in the story. I also loved Abbie Cornish. This is one of her better performances.
MICHAEL: She was very good and she added a lot of emotion to the film. You can feel the helplessness of what was happening through her.
RYAN: The set design was nice – Michael Keaton’s office, Oldman’s laboratory… all very modern and cool. And while the effects are good, some looked a bit like watching a video game.
MICHAEL: That’s probably a way to mask the violence and keep it PG-13 though so you don’t see as much blood.
RYAN: That’s true. Did you like this better than the original?
MICHAEL: It’s hard to compare – this one is a more realistic take on the story whereas the first was more violent and satirical. I did like the 1987 one better because it was more inventive for the time. But I still liked this one and hope people will give it a chance to be reinterpreted. There were sequels and both live action and animated series spawned from it so this could have some legs too.
RYAN: I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s not as good as an Iron Man movie but it’s a solid action film with enough story and superhero aspects to keep it going.
