filmreview
Jo el Kinnaman and Gar y Oldman in “Robocop”
There and back again “RoboCop” and “Maidentrip” win as portraits of transformation, discovery by JOE O’SHANSKY
W
hen people ask me what my favorite movie is and I reply, with no hint of irony whatsoever, “RoboCop,” they think I’m joking. Wait, what? Not “Casablanca”? “The Godfather”? Well, sure those films are objectively better than “RoboCop.” They are among the best movies ever made. But you said “favorite.” Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 satirical masterpiece struck a strange chord in me. The film’s goofy, black-andwhite morality has an entertaining, comic-book vibe. The cartoonish characters and themes of a systemically corrupt, dystopian, plutocratic future coupled with bullet-riddled loads of unrepentant uber-violence combined to make “RoboCop” a funny, gory, eerily prescient blast of a film. It helped that the 80s, which shaped many of my tastes, were awash with some of the better adventure, sci-fi, and fantasy movies ever made. “RoboCop” was the cherry on top of it all.
48 // FILM & TV
So, when I heard a slick, new, PG-13 remake of “RoboCop” was coming along to cash in on the brand, I hated the idea on principle. Sure, nothing could erase the glorious original, not even two sub-par sequels and a shitty Canadian television series. But there was no way they could redo “RoboCop” better than Verhoeven. No fucking way. It was hubris. Unsurprisingly, the 2014 iteration of “RoboCop” falls far short of its namesake. What is surprising, though, is that I didn’t hate it. Not at all.
Unsurprisingly, the 2014 iteration of “Robocop” falls far short of its namesake. What is surprising, though, is that I didn’t hate it. Not at all. Detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) and his partner, Jack
Lewis (Michael K. Williams), run afoul of a group of weapons dealers during a sting gone wrong. Alex gets out of the subsequent shootout unharmed while Jack is critically wounded. Their target, Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow), the crime syndicate’s leader, orders a hit on Murphy. Meanwhile, OmniCorp, a leviathan weapons conglomerate headed by Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), is looking for a way to get the Dreyfuss Act, which bans the use of militarized robots for domestic law enforcement, repealed in Congress. Mounting a propaganda campaign though a right-wing television pundit, Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson), Sellars finds that public opinion might shift if OmniCorp can come up with a robot cop with a human’s touch. Sellars, along with his lead designer, Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman), begin vetting disfigured and near-death cyborg candidates, with no success. That is, until Vallon catches up with Murphy, nearly killing him
with a bomb planted under his car. Sellars and Norton convince Murphy’s wife, Clara (Abbie Cornish), to sign on to the RoboCop program. It’s the one way to keep Murphy alive for Clara and their son, and OmniCorp’s bottom line. But when their law-abiding Frankenstein starts going off the grid to solve his own murder, among other little quirks of his humanity which can’t be regulated, Murphy discovers corruption among his fellow cops and learns of the deep malfeasance of his corporate creators. Sellars learns that a product that can’t be controlled is a liability. The best moments of “RoboCop” come when it’s doing its own thing. The story focuses much more on Murphy and his family and the effect his transformation has on their lives. Meanwhile, the plot carves its own path for much of the first two acts, reintroducing the themes of corporate plutocracy, drone warfare, economic inequality, political corruption, and Feb. 19 – Mar. 4, 2014 // THE TULSA VOICE