Robocop

There was absolutely no need to remake Robocop. Let's get real here, it's not a perfect movie, but it's a perfect movie to its era. With the tendency of remakes to be made serious and less tongue in cheek, as well as with February quality movies generally being poor, there's really no way I could expect a decent Robocop movie. And with a director who's done nothing that I've seen and a writer who's done nothing of any real significance (except an uncredited hand in Quantum of Solace), what were we really getting into? A remake with absolutely no effort for quality? Oh boy.

But it's actually a pleasant surprise. Yes, the movie is far less tongue in cheek than its original. But while it keeps itself serious, at no point does the seriousness come across as disingenuous. Character depression and anger is real, it's saddening, and especially from his wife it works. We see Gary Oldman's character have a great turnaround and a fantastic performance overall that lets us really love  who he is and what he's trying to be.  Moments of frustration for our main character, played by Joel Kinnaman, really hit the audience, whether it's the initial fear and depression or eventually the lack of humanity. Maybe it was just me, but I really felt the sadness of the distance of his self.

Effects in this film were hit or miss. Sometimes, we see amazing sequences. In particular the deconstruction of his body revealing the only functioning parts was incredibly creepy, and looked great. But then the scenes with characters running around were filled with what was described brilliantly by Doug Walker as "Toy Story animation". Which, of course worked great in Toy Story because they were toys. But to see a character moving with the same physical ability as Woody, it looks weird. They look like they're made of rubber, and sometimes it works okay enough but mostly it looks cheap. The suit, however, looks awesome. The introduction of the suits ability with the dropping of the visor in particular is amazing, and a lot of fun to watch. It simultaneously makes us look at him as a badass, while also feeling the pity of his complete lack of control.

Robocop shouldn't work. Serious movies adapted from tongue in cheek screenplays are often a complete misfire. But this proves that even a mediocre action movie can be made into quite an enjoyable remake. I can't blame people for not giving it a chance. But maybe you should.

Rank - 3.5/5