This was movie number two of yesterday’s outing and I saw it because I was intrigued. Reboots are always a hit or miss and I was curious to see if this would be a success. So basically there were the only things I knew about the film: it’s about a cop who’s turned into a robot and that it’s a reboot.

So here’s my roundup of Jose Padilha’s RoboCop.

Please note that there may be spoilers. Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

The movie is set in the futuristic America where Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton – Batman Returns, Multiplicity), head of Omnicorp — world’s top robot producer — is struggling to convince the American people to repeal a bill set by Congress that prohibits the use of drones/robots -as enforcers of the law. Of course there’re a multitude of pro’s (they’re more efficient, the use of robots would prevent the deaths of human policemen) and con’s (they can’t be trusted to make a sound judgement; “if it doesn’t know how it feels to lose a life, what gives it the right to take it?”) and despite Sellars’s team (Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel) best efforts, the masses wont’t be swayed. They don’t trust the drones because they don’t understand it.

Enter Doctor Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman – The Dark Knight trilogy, the Harry Potter series) and his assistant Jae Kim (Aimee Garcia) who are commissioned by Sellars to help create a “product” that would be palatable and relatable enough that the people’a general fear of drones would abate. Fortunately (or unfortunately – depending on which side you’re looking from), honest and hardworking Sergeant Alexander Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is left incapacitated by a blast that nearly killed him — a special note from the crook he’s trying to pin down — and is entered into Norton’s program by his wife Clara (Abbie Cornish – Sucker Punch, Limitless) in order to save him.

Roughly ninety percent of him is replaced by metal and even though he has no remaining limbs left, Alex is still in full control of his body and he is set to debut back into the police force as Chicago’a first cyborg. Things go askew when Alex’s emotions leaves him unable to control his titanium body and upon Sellars’ pressuring, Norton brings down Alex’s dopamine levels low enough to render him emotionless and robot-like.

The question is asked: can Alex Murphy still be considered human without his feelings?

THE GOOD:

1. Gary Oldman. In a movie that’s more comparable to Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein than I, Frankenstein, Gary Oldman plays the tormented creator struggling to strike the perfect balance between cyborg and human. He’s probably the only shining beacon in this film; it seems like he’s the only one who has a full grasp of his character’s emotions and motivations.
   
2. The Special Effects. If you’re expecting thing to go boom, this film doesn’t disappoint on that front. The CGI delivers on every expectation one has from a film called ‘RoboCop’.
3. Joel Kinnaman. Only because he’s good looking enough to pull off the suit. Although to be fair, his scenes with his family were affecting.
   
4. Aimee Garcia. It’s a small role but I loved how she was the right hand man to Gary Oldman’s Norton.
5. The opening scene. As silly as it was, it was very memorable and one of the more creative ways to open a movie I’ve seen in a long time.

THE BAD:

1. Michael Keaton. It was obvious that the dude was channelling his inner Steve Jobs, which was fine and dandy for the first parts of the film but didn’t quite work as the film’s token villain.
   
2. Abbi Cornish. Or more specifically, her stupid side-bun and that annoying curl on the side of her face.
   
3. The cookie cutter baddies. It’s almost an insult. I wish they’d thought up of ways to link the small baddie to the big baddie, or at the very least made up their minds and just stuck through with just one effectively scary villain instead of two forgettable ones.
4. The shaky camera work during the fight scenes. Sorry, but that was just terrible. It felt like I was watching through a grinder. I wish that they just kept most of the fight scenes in RoboCop’s point of view, at least that would’ve been more stable and easier to follow.

THE UGLY:

1. The lack of focus. The main problem that I had with this movie is that it seemed to not know what it was doing and where it was going. Here we were presented with a myriad of conflicts that ranges from the war in the East to a blatant criticism of how the media sways the masses. Add to that a bunch of cheap emotional shots of a crying cute kid to tug at our sympathy strings. I think had they only kept the conflicts to a maximum of three items (Alex’s relationship with his family, the revenge angle and perhaps RoboCop’s relationship with Norton), the film would have been livable. As it is, we get a dragging film with far too many issues that don’t really get any resolution.

All in all RoboCop is not what I expected it to be and went above and beyond all expectations that one has from the title alone. I commend the film makers for putting Gary Oldman front and center; they knew their best asset and they placed him at the forefront. I just wish that the plot was more polished and that the direction was more decisive.

THE VERDICT:. 4.9/10. Wait for it on cable and watch something else.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.