The big dumb action movie is an integral piece of the cinema world. Everything about it is larger than life and it provides audiences with an escape that is far more unbelievable and fantastical than, say dramatic masterpieces like The Godfather or critically acclaimed comedies like Annie Hall. The best big dumb action movies give us an invincible hero to root for, a super villain to hate, and enormous stakes at hand. Die Hard, Terminator, Aliens
these are all big dumb action movies that people dissect, discuss and debate over. Robocop tries to stumble its way into the lineup of big dumb action movies but the end result is just dumb. There's nothing truly big about this movie, save for the ED-209 robots that appear once in the very beginning of the film and then of course once again at the very end in the only actually exciting sequence of the entire movie. This film takes place in Detroit, a major American city, and yet it doesn't feel like we're in a city. In fact, I don't really know where we are half the time. Most of the film takes place in small places (The Murphy home, police headquarters, a lab in OmniCorp that nearly every single character somehow has access to??!!) It's a very claustrophobic experience for no discernible reason.
Robocop is also very short on action. There are a few explosions throughout, but short of a training sequence set to the tune of "If I Only Had a Heart" from The Wizard of Oz (get it? Don't worry, if the joke flew over your head you'll get the chance to hear it again 376 more times before the credits roll) and the final confrontation at OmniCorp headquarters, this movie is a bore. Of course I'm speaking for myself here. You might find footage of Robocop riding his motorcycle exciting. If so, great news! There are no less than 5 different instances of Detective Murphy cruising around on his hog. Remember when I said there were several explosions? At least 3 of them are the exact same scene of Murphy's death. It's as if director Jose Padilha thought we forgot what happened in the first 15 minutes of the movie so he threw us a bone and reminded us at various intervals throughout.
What Robocop excels at is DUMB. This movie is dumb right down to its core which, like Alex Murphy's, is just barely holding on to life and sure to die without the assistance of modern technology. Let's touch on what's left of Murphy after the first time they show him explode. His face, heart and lungs are all kept going by some kind of respirator and then for some bullshit fan-service pandering reason one hand is kept alive? It looks ridiculous just floating there by itself, truly a sight to behold, and for what? Just to say to the fans, "Hey remember his hand from the first movie? Am I right? Movies, huh guys?" This film does a lot of fan-service nods to the original that tend to take you right out of it entirely. That would normally be a bad thing, but since the original Robocop is far superior to this turd, any and all distractions are welcome.
Speaking of distractions, Samuel L. Jackson puts on his Frederick Douglass wig and pops up every once in a while to do a Bill O'Reilly impression. He's a right wing pundit who hosts his own show where apparently all he talks about is how America needs robots on its own soil to keep crime down. I get that they're going for satire here because the original movie is satire. The original Robocop is not a big dumb action movie. It's a smart, biting satire of crime, violence, urban decay and our overreactions to them as a fearful society. That this movie even attempts the satire of the original is at worst insulting to the audience and at best laughable.
Let's talk about pacing for a minute because the filmmakers never bothered to. At no point during this movie did I have any sense of when or where. We jump forward weeks and months at a time. I know this because it says so on the screen but I don't feel like we've gone anywhere. For a film that moves forward in time as often as it does, maybe you should have had more than two outfits for Michael Keaton to wear? It honestly feels like you're watching SNL jump from one sketch to another. There are no segues, no lead-ins, no dramatic lingering shots. It's just here's a scene, here's another scene, here's another scene. And it goes on and on like that the entire time. At one point I wrote the following in my notes: "What is going on??"
In the end Robocop utterly fails to draw you into its world because it doesn't even know what world it wants to live in. It's kind of an action movie but not really. It's kind of doing satire but you should totally take it seriously. It's got a little sci-fi but then completely bails on explaining any of the mysteries that angle proposes (emotions interfere with the software, no one knows why). It feels like the director saw a picture of Robocop, looked it up on Wikipedia and read the first paragraph then got distracted by an ad for the new season of Cougar Town and outsourced the screenplay to the Youtube comment section.
Your prime directive is to stay away from Robocop.
Robocop is also very short on action. There are a few explosions throughout, but short of a training sequence set to the tune of "If I Only Had a Heart" from The Wizard of Oz (get it? Don't worry, if the joke flew over your head you'll get the chance to hear it again 376 more times before the credits roll) and the final confrontation at OmniCorp headquarters, this movie is a bore. Of course I'm speaking for myself here. You might find footage of Robocop riding his motorcycle exciting. If so, great news! There are no less than 5 different instances of Detective Murphy cruising around on his hog. Remember when I said there were several explosions? At least 3 of them are the exact same scene of Murphy's death. It's as if director Jose Padilha thought we forgot what happened in the first 15 minutes of the movie so he threw us a bone and reminded us at various intervals throughout.
What Robocop excels at is DUMB. This movie is dumb right down to its core which, like Alex Murphy's, is just barely holding on to life and sure to die without the assistance of modern technology. Let's touch on what's left of Murphy after the first time they show him explode. His face, heart and lungs are all kept going by some kind of respirator and then for some bullshit fan-service pandering reason one hand is kept alive? It looks ridiculous just floating there by itself, truly a sight to behold, and for what? Just to say to the fans, "Hey remember his hand from the first movie? Am I right? Movies, huh guys?" This film does a lot of fan-service nods to the original that tend to take you right out of it entirely. That would normally be a bad thing, but since the original Robocop is far superior to this turd, any and all distractions are welcome.
Speaking of distractions, Samuel L. Jackson puts on his Frederick Douglass wig and pops up every once in a while to do a Bill O'Reilly impression. He's a right wing pundit who hosts his own show where apparently all he talks about is how America needs robots on its own soil to keep crime down. I get that they're going for satire here because the original movie is satire. The original Robocop is not a big dumb action movie. It's a smart, biting satire of crime, violence, urban decay and our overreactions to them as a fearful society. That this movie even attempts the satire of the original is at worst insulting to the audience and at best laughable.
Let's talk about pacing for a minute because the filmmakers never bothered to. At no point during this movie did I have any sense of when or where. We jump forward weeks and months at a time. I know this because it says so on the screen but I don't feel like we've gone anywhere. For a film that moves forward in time as often as it does, maybe you should have had more than two outfits for Michael Keaton to wear? It honestly feels like you're watching SNL jump from one sketch to another. There are no segues, no lead-ins, no dramatic lingering shots. It's just here's a scene, here's another scene, here's another scene. And it goes on and on like that the entire time. At one point I wrote the following in my notes: "What is going on??"
In the end Robocop utterly fails to draw you into its world because it doesn't even know what world it wants to live in. It's kind of an action movie but not really. It's kind of doing satire but you should totally take it seriously. It's got a little sci-fi but then completely bails on explaining any of the mysteries that angle proposes (emotions interfere with the software, no one knows why). It feels like the director saw a picture of Robocop, looked it up on Wikipedia and read the first paragraph then got distracted by an ad for the new season of Cougar Town and outsourced the screenplay to the Youtube comment section.
Your prime directive is to stay away from Robocop.