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Released by: Fox
Released on: June 3rd, 2014.
Director: José Padilha
Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley
Year: 2014
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The Movie:
One of the most unnecessary remakes in a veritable sea of unnecessary remakes is 2014's Robocop, directed by Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha. While the movie offers up plenty of style and slick visuals, it also tones things down from Verhoeven's hard R to a far more sanitary PG-13. You've got to get those teenagers into the theaters if you want your film to be a blockbuster, and it would seem that more often than note that was the intent behind this picture: ditch the rich social commentary that made the original a classic and replace it with visually impressive but completely vapid action scenes in an attempt to broaden the mass appeal of a strictly commercial endeavor (though to the director's credit it would seem that he did at least try to fight the studio on this, even if he ultimately lost that fight).
The story is familiar enough. In the Detroit of 2028, a super corporation called OmniCorp leads the way in robotic technology and is currently doing big things in military and law enforcement arenas. When a cop named Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is seriously injured while answering a call, the powers that be at OmniCorp see an opportunity to take the poor man and rebuild him into a robotic police officer complete with high tech weapons and a suit of armor and under the care of Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) they do just that. OmniCorp knows that if they can make a success out of this project that every other major city in the nation and maybe the world will want a 'Robocop' of their own and that it'll mean a massive influx of cash into their accounts. What they don't bet on is Murphy's memories being retained, the kind of memories that call him to the wife (Abbie Cornish) he left behind and the kind of memories that mean he might just be more man than machine after all. While all of this is going on, OmniCorp head Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) is frustrated with some of the results of the roll out of their ED-209 program.
The movie has a pretty obvious anti-war message running throughout it (OminCorp also makes drones used in military operations around the world) and like its predecessor uses mass media and television snippets to add some satirical elements. Samuel L. Jackson overdoes it as a TV talk show host named Pat Novak and is more or less crammed into the movie for that reason and to pay tribute to the 'I'd buy that for a dollar' running gag of the first movie. It's a little much and it doesn't quite fit, it feels forced. We do get some pondering as to the merits of cybernetic enhancements and the ways in which medical and industrial technology sometimes collide for the wrong reasons: Oldman's Norton wanting to help Murphy, an amputee after his assault being the most obvious example here. There are moments here where the script seems to be reaching for something more but it never quite gets there and it never goes far enough beyond the action scenes to give us the nitty-gritty as to why those in charge do what they do the way that they do it. The obvious reason is money, of course, but does anyone have a conlfict of interest here, what about a conscience? There doesn't seem to be much thought coming from the bigger players as to what they're doing and everyone feels like they're simply going through the motions here.
The performances are fine pretty much across the board and the cast do a decent enough job with the material, but when the script doesn't give them anything really deep to work with, you can only expect so much out of talented actors like Keaton and Oldman. Kinnaman manages to at least garner our sympathy, he's been gravely injured and seems to truly love his family, so we can't hold him responsible for the films vapid tone. It all comes back to the script and its remarkable lack of substance. Jackie Earle Haley is fun in a supporting role as a henchmen type but underused.
So if the movie doesn't have the smarts does it at least deliver on the action front? If you dig big CGI shoot'em ups, sure, but don't expect the intense, over the top ultra-violence that Verhoeven used in his picture to make his points stand loud and clear. This is, as was mentioned earlier, a very sanitized take on things and it winds up feeling more like a typical Marvel or DC style superhero movie than a sci-fi film. The effects are good, the design work is solid and very polished and the sound work is fantastic but none of this compensates for the fact that the movie doesn't have much to offer outside of some superficial surface level thrills. There are certainly far worse movies out there and there are certainly far worse remakes out there this is pretty forgettable stuff.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Robocop arrives on Blu-ray in AVC encoded 2.40.1 widescreen in 1080p high definition in a transfer that is just as sparkly and shiny and clean as you'd expect from a glossy major studio production. Detail is very strong throughout the movie, both in close up shots and medium/long distance shots as well, and color reproduction is pretty much perfect. Black levels are rich and deep and while there are a few spots where some really minor crush pops up in the darker scenes, things shape up almost perfectly here - say what you will about the quality of the movie, but the quality of the picture on this disc is excellent.
Fox has jammed this disc with plenty of audio options, but the only lossless one is the English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Dubbed options are provided in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Urdu, Hindi and Thai in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and in Spanish and Italian DTS 5.1 Surround Sound. Subtitles are offered up in English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Mandarin, Thai and Vietnamese. Plenty of great surround activity is used throughout the movie and there's some great directional effects work here to enjoy. The score sounds good, the levels are nicely balanced, the dialogue is crystal clear - the lossless mix on this disc is top notch.
The main extra on the disc is a three part featurette entitled RoboCop: Engineered For The 21st Century that runs just under twenty-nine minutes in length. The first part, The Illusion Of Free Will: A New Vision, tackles the differences between the original Paul Verhoeven Robocop and this new version from José Padilha. They try to make the case that this is a relevant remake, but how much you agree with that will obviously depend on your thoughts on the feature itself. To Serve And Protect: RoboCop's New Weapons is exactly what it sounds like - a look at the technology employed in the weapons used by the titular hero and what Joel Kinnaman had to go through in order to properly train to use them in the movie. The third part is The RoboCop Suit: Form And Function and it shows off not only the design work that went into creating this new version of the Robocop suit but also the complexities of using it convincingly in front of the camera.
As from that we also get four minutes of Deleted Scenes (Pentagon, Right Hand, Helicopter, Lewis and Dean, Norton Confesses to Dreyfus) and three and a half minutes of Omnicorp Product Announcements (Exo-Skeleton, EM-208, ED-209, XT-908, Cruiser 1, TSR-66, M2 Battle Rifle, RC-2000 V1, RC-2000 V3, Next Generation RoboCop).
Rounding out the extras are two theatrical trailers, menus, chapter selection and previews for a few unrelated Fox properties. As this is a combo pack release it also includes a DVD version of the movie as well as a download code for a digital copy of the feature.
The Final Word:
Robocop is slick, it's glossy and it's technically quite impressive but it lacks the character and the brilliant social commentary that made the original film such masterpiece. If superficial thrills are what you're after, it delivers those, but nothing more than that. The Blu-ray from Fox looks and sounds very good but the movie is ultimately pretty disposable.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
