**This review contains spoilers for both films.**
General Problems:
The reboot is PG-13 instead of R. I knew that going in, but
having seen the original, I went into the reboot with the expectation of
gratuitous violence. I wanted to see large caliber rounds exploding through
flesh, blood splatter aplenty. I wanted to see at least one bad guy melted by
toxic waste, and maybe a giant robot fall down some stairs.
What I got was a boring, drawn out political statement about
corporations running the government. If I wanted that, I'd watch C-SPAN. Oddly,
there was also an effort to sell toys to the kids allowed by the PG-13 rating
in between the congressional debates. Kind of like the last three Star Wars
movies.
The original film portrays a future saturated with
hyper-consumerism, where people can legally be classified as products. The
remake portrays a future just like the present in every way except they somehow
have super advanced A.I. and Samuel L. Jackson is Bill O’Reilly.
ED-209 is completely pointless in the new film. It’s merely
there to sell toys, not as a main obstacle that only Robocop can overcome.
“I wouldn't buy that for a dollar” was a poor attempt to
connect to the original. On the one hand, only a fan of the original who has
seen it several times would remember the original line. On the other, this film
is clearly not for the fans of the original. So why bother with it all?
Here are some lines they could've used but ignored
completely:
Robocop: “Thank you
for your cooperation. Good night.”
Robocop: “Your move, creep.”
Robocop: “Dead or alive, you're coming with me.”
Robocop: “Come quietly or there will be…trouble.”
Emil (henchman): “I like
it!” (A quote so recognizable it made it in the video game Borderlands.)
Problems with Murphy:
The reboot focuses way too much on Murphy’s family. They eat
up so much screen time, they drain any momentum the movie builds. In the
original, the family is barely a subplot and used as a reference point for
Murphy’s humanity. Then more stuff blows up.
The original Murphy is systematically destroyed one shotgun
blast at a time by a gang of ruthless criminals. The new Murphy is blown up
with a car bomb by a group of completely forgettable nobodies.
Problems with
Robocop:
The gun-in-the-leg holster only shows for a second in the
reboot. We all know it’s there (unlike in the original), so they should have showed
him using it.
The original has an “extremely simple digestive system” so
he eats baby food. The new one is just lungs and a face and needs dialysis. The
original makes self-repairs in an abandoned warehouse with a cordless drill and
a Gerber jar, while the new one couldn’t finish packing an overnight bag before
dying of sepsis.
The new Robocop goes light on the “robo” part. In an effort
to make him sleek, they've turned him into Batman with a KITT face plate (or
Cylon, take your pick).
The classified Directive 4 vs. a stupid bracelet. In the
original, there was a mysterious Directive 4 built in to Robocop’s operating
system, which we learn later is designed to prevent him from taking action
against any officer of Omni Consumer Products (in this case, the main villain).
In the reboot, OCP makes bracelets which prevent Robocop from shooting that
person. Great idea except he could just follow that person until the bracelet’s
battery runs down. Unless sepsis kills him. Never mind, I guess the bracelet is
100% effective against the new Robocop.
The original has a “terminal strip” (a big, retractable
metal spike that extends from his wrist) which is used to access computer
systems and stab bad guys in the neck. The reboot has…nothing. Although he does
speak sternly to several villains.
The End:
When the villain dies (the one responsible for the car
bomb), you feel like Robocop just hit the Staples easy button. And then the
movie doesn’t end. It goes on so that Beetlejuice can get his comeuppance. But
by this point you can’t force yourself to care. Murphy has no free will since
Commissioner Gordon glued those integrated circuits to his brain. Murphy’s
existence is an illusion. Would it be so horrible to put him out of his misery?
Here’s hoping there’s no sequel.
