Film 20 - Robocop

Robocop - 13/02/2014

I remember watching the 1987 version of Robocop in the front room at my Nanna's house with my brother and cousins at a very early age.  My brother had acquired a VHS copy of the film and we watched in amazement as blood and guts spilled everywhere, Clarence Bodicker and Dick Jones as great bad guys, and the satire going completely over my head.  I also remember going into primary school that week repeating the lines, "Dead or Alive, you're coming with me", or "I'd buy that for a dollar!", and thanking my mum for her "Co-operation".

Paul Verhoevan must be loving having his films of the 80's remade, recently "Total Recall" was given this treatment and ruined by taking the original idea, disregarding it and then taking all the fun out of it.  So I was not at all surprised when "Robocop" was announced to be having a re-imagining, what I was surprised about was the 12 certificate it had received.   

I, however, decided to try to watch this remake without any preconceptions or comparisons and try to watch this as an original.  Luckily, I had Clare with me who has never seen the 1987 version, so I had a true perspective as well.

Alex Murphy, a good, strong and moral cop is severely injured in an explosion as he gets close to a large crime syndicate boss and is fused with a machine to both create a new era of policing and to encourage the american public to warm to the idea of a robotic presence on the streets (a concept that has been added to most countries in the world to some degree of success and a massive decrease in human loss of life).  

Omnicorp boss, Sellars (Michael Keaton) is looking to counter the Dreyfus Act by giving a robot human qualities to avoid emotionless machines patrolling the streets.  

This is where the film got really boring.  How can a film about a robot fused with a cop be boring?

I am a big believer that if you make an action film with shiny things, explosions and eye candy you must be on to a winner.  Robocop has all three, but it is just boring.

Alex Murphy is boring, the bad guys are boring, the story is boring, the whole 2 and a bit hours are just dull and boring.  It is quite impressive that a concept such as this could be made so boring.

If you want to see Robocop, go dust off that old VHS copy you have, or dig out the DVD version you bought out of nostalgia, just don't have it ruined by this version.

Looking forward to the remake of Starship Troopers!!!