RoboCop (2014)

[Dementeleus]

DIRECTIVE 4: [CLASSIFIED]

[The Stingray]

DIRECTIVE 4: [CLASSIFIED]

Any attempt to criticize a mod results in a ban.

[Dementeleus]

Any attempt to criticize a mod results in a ban.

 

Your move, creep.

[DeeCee]

BEHAVE YOURSELVES!

[eXtacy]

Good popcorn film. Fun action scenes and a well rounded script. You won't be disappointed. B-

[vc2002]

Your move, creep.

See, I got this problem. Mods don't like me. So I don't like mods.

[rukaio101]

Hey guys! You know what's bad? Drones and Machines. You want to know how I know? Because I had to sit 2 hours of this fucking movie telling me so over and over again! I mean... my god! There's being preachy and then there slapping your audience in the face going 'Do you get it? Do you get it yet? Look, we'll throw in this scene with this guy playing guitar with a robotic arm and- Do you get it now? Maybe if we show you another parody of right-wing talk hosts with Samuel L. Jackson you'll get it.'

 

That's not to say putting morals and messages in movies is bad, but this movie not only shoves them down your face but also kinda sucks at them. They introduce all these arguments for the pro-machine sides, like how human cops won't end up dying, or how machines can't be bribed, or how much more efficient they are, while the anti-machine side only seems to have 'they can't feel'. They don't even bother trying to debunk the pro-machine arguments. Which just supposed to ignore them because the 'bad guys' said them. Hell, when Murphy begins getting his emotions back, he becomes much more sloppy and badass, kills people unnecessarily and fucking tortures a guy to get information. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! Showing us just how much better human emotions are than machines. Speaking of, they did an awful job of trying to make Sellers the villain here. We're obviously supposed to be disgusted that he's only in it for the money but we never see him outright try to break the law until he tries to have Murphy killed so he can't talk about.... <insert vague never-before-mentioned corruption here>. And while he may be greedy, his drones cut the crime rates down massively. Hell, he doesn't even really threaten Alex or his family at the end. He points out he can, but he doesn't seem to want to. Yet apparently this was enough for the moviemakers to think he needed to die. Seriously, when you end up rooting for a greedy corporate executive more than fucking Robocop at the end of your movie, something somewhere has gone horribly wrong.

 

I don't have all that much to say about Alex's family except that they were probably more robotic than the fucking drones. Seriously, in one scene Murphy is scrolling through CCTV footage of his son and measuring his emotional reactions as stuff like 'stressed' and 'high anxiety' but he didn't look it at all. He looks bored as hell. Hell, he looks more stoned than the actual stoned guy. The guy playing Robocop has absolutely no chemistry with his supposed wife or son which really kinda dents the whole 'emotions are better than machines' message the movie is constantly sledgehammering into our face. Actually, you know what, i was wrong at the beginning of this review. This isn't an anti-drones/machines movie. This is a pro-drones.machines movies disguised as an anti-drones/machines movie. It all makes sense now! The fact that they got the dullest possible people they could to represent Murphy and his family. The fact that the villains really weren't that villainous. The fact that only the pro-machine arguments make any goddamn sense. The fact that Robocop is so much more badass when in his robotic mode than his human one. The fact that Samuel L. Jackson is portraying the pro-machine talk host who we're obviously supposed to hate but don't because it's Samuel L. Jackson. It all fits together!

 

Anyway, I suppose I should talk about the positives. Robocop robocopping was pretty awesome. And the smaller news stories scrolling below whenever they had news footage were hilarious. Some of the ones I spotted included astronauts taking hookers into space, Greenpeace being hacked by Wikileaks and something about the Mexican President and Aliens, which I didn't get a great look at. Oh and the Robocop theme was badass as always. And that's about it.

 

All in all, I'm grateful to Robocop. Not for being enjoyable, it was a piece of shit. But for giving me something other than Man of Steel that I can rant about for the next few months.

 

D

Edited February 7, 2014 by rukaio101

[lab276]

Didn't love it, didn't hate it. It felt like a waste of time though. B

[baumer]

This is rated pg here in Canada, the original was R.  Not good.

[Jessie]

Hey guys! You know what's bad? Drones and Machines. You want to know how I know? Because I had to sit 2 hours of this fucking movie telling me so over and over again! I mean... my god! There's being preachy and then there slapping your audience in the face going 'Do you get it? Do you get it yet? Look, we'll throw in this scene with this guy playing guitar with a robotic arm and- Do you get it now? Maybe if we show you another parody of right-wing talk hosts with Samuel L. Jackson you'll get it.'

 

That's not to say putting morals and messages in movies is bad, but this movie not only shoves them down your face but also kinda sucks at them. They introduce all these arguments for the pro-machine sides, like how human cops won't end up dying, or how machines can't be bribed, or how much more efficient they are, while the anti-machine side only seems to have 'they can't feel'. They don't even bother trying to debunk the pro-machine arguments. Which just supposed to ignore them because the 'bad guys' said them. Hell, when Murphy begins getting his emotions back, he becomes much more sloppy and badass, kills people unnecessarily and fucking tortures a guy to get information. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! Showing us just how much better human emotions are than machines. Speaking of, they did an awful job of trying to make Sellers the villain here. We're obviously supposed to be disgusted that he's only in it for the money but we never see him outright try to break the law until he tries to have Murphy killed so he can't talk about.... <insert vague never-before-mentioned corruption here>. And while he may be greedy, his drones cut the crime rates down massively. Hell, he doesn't even really threaten Alex or his family at the end. He points out he can, but he doesn't seem to want to. Yet apparently this was enough for the moviemakers to think he needed to die. Seriously, when you end up rooting for a greedy corporate executive more than fucking Robocop at the end of your movie, something somewhere has gone horribly wrong.

 

I don't have all that much to say about Alex's family except that they were probably more robotic than the fucking drones. Seriously, in one scene Murphy is scrolling through CCTV footage of his son and measuring his emotional reactions as stuff like 'stressed' and 'high anxiety' but he didn't look it at all. He looks bored as hell. Hell, he looks more stoned than the actual stoned guy. The guy playing Robocop has absolutely no chemistry with his supposed wife or son which really kinda dents the whole 'emotions are better than machines' message the movie is constantly sledgehammering into our face. Actually, you know what, i was wrong at the beginning of this review. This isn't an anti-drones/machines movie. This is a pro-drones.machines movies disguised as an anti-drones/machines movie. It all makes sense now! The fact that they got the dullest possible people they could to represent Murphy and his family. The fact that the villains really weren't that villainous. The fact that only the pro-machine arguments make any goddamn sense. The fact that Robocop is so much more badass when in his robotic mode than his human one. The fact that Samuel L. Jackson is portraying the pro-machine talk host who we're obviously supposed to hate but don't because it's Samuel L. Jackson. It all fits together!

 

Anyway, I suppose I should talk about the positives. Robocop robocopping was pretty awesome. And the smaller news stories scrolling below whenever they had news footage were hilarious. Some of the ones I spotted included astronauts taking hookers into space, Greenpeace being hacked by Wikileaks and something about the Mexican President and Aliens, which I didn't get a great look at. Oh and the Robocop theme was badass as always. And that's about it.

 

All in all, I'm grateful to Robocop. Not for being enjoyable, it was a piece of shit. But for giving me something other than Man of Steel that I can rant about for the next few months.

 

D

Just keep following them

Edited February 12, 2014 by Jessie

[rukaio101]

Just keep following them

So... you're calling me a sheep for disliking this film (despite me giving precise and logical reasons for my dislike) instead of blindly following your opinion on it?

 

Because that makes logical sense.

[DoctorWho]

Holy shit! This was very good actually. did not see that coming.

 

My favourite scenes where:

- when he looks for the first time at himself, such well done scene!!!

- the fight with the robots at the end, cools stuff.

 

 

 

I give this an 8/10

[Ozymandias]

This is a frustrating movie.  With a great cast, including Joel Kinnaman who did a great job with the material he was given, its never awful, but every time the movie displays huge potential, it repeatedly squanders it in boringly shot action and mediocre production choices. 

 

Robocop opens with a fucking fantastic opening sequence in US occupied Tehran where a bunch of different kinds of robots and drones, land and air, are patrolling the city(the US appears to dominate and controls the entire world with these things now).  As the Iranians are forced to live under constant 24 hour watch humiliated, Samuel L. Jackson's hardcore neo-con swoops in explaining to us how happy these folks are to be living under their new imperialist overlords because it just can't be any worse or just as bad as the religious fascists that run that country today.  During this sequence we see a child get blown up by one of the big robots and this entire ballsy opening makes you ask yourself "Umm... did they actually just nail a Robocop remake?"

 

Sadly, this display of potential is short lived and the energy and potential the movie had takes some big steps backwards as we're thrown into the life Alex Murphy who we know is already doomed since we're watching a Robocop movie, which makes the banter with completely expressionless villains(there were also no real main or memorable villains in the movie until the end when they decided to turn Michael Keaton's character into one) with no personality whatsoever and the boring action scene(a long and unexciting gunfight) which makes it feel like the movie meanders in these boring doldrums for too long, almost to the point where its a relief when Murphy gets blown up and dismembered.

 

But the movie has an impressive uptick in quality when Murphy is adjusting to the suit for the first time and then later sees what is left of his body(with some pretty damn effective body horror) when Gary Oldman's character shows him.  The best and most striking part of the whole movie is when Murphy is looking at what remains of himself in suicidal horror, just his head and essential guts such as the lungs and heart(this whole scene is amazing and the performances were great).  Then, as soon are you're really hooked again by all this, the movie then throws you into another rather dull and uninspired action sequence that is set to bad music and seems to go on forever.

 

The rest of the movie keeps doing this, switching back and forth between great and mediocre.  The basic problem of this film is that for every step it takes forward, it takes 2-3 steps backwards.  On one hand it wants to be a serious exploration on morals and the difference between man and machine, and on the other it wants to be just a crowd pleasing action movie and in doing so, it ends up pleasing neither, or at the very least, damaging both of its goals.

 

Perhaps one of the reasons why the action in this movie was boring was because it didn't feel like it had any grit(besides having no real villains or stakes). Yes, the movie is PG-13.  I really don't like it, but long gone are the days of people gloriously getting killed in big action movies Paul Verhoeven/80s action style, with a few exceptions every now and then like the Dredd remake(a movie I can't recommend enough, its one of those rare and perfectly scripted action B movies with a lot of Paul Verhoeven and John Carpenter in it). 

 

Somewhere in the heart of this movie you can tell it had the soul of a great one, unfortunately its a product of the times we live in. 

 

C

Edited February 13, 2014 by Ozymandias

[DeeCee]

That's the thing.  Half the time you aren't really sure whether or not he's actually shot someone or stunned them.

 

They also set up Robocop going through security cameras and online data to track people down yet when it came to Keaton being the big bad guy there was no similar scene.

 

Still, I did enjoy it and it was much better then I expected it to be.  The two stand out scenes were the opening in Tehran and when it's revealed what's left of him under the suit.  The movie really sets you up for that scene because you are lead to believe there is far more of him left.

[Phil in the Blank]

Sitting down at the beginning of 2014 there were 5 little words that I didn't think I'ld be saying in the calendar year. 'Wow, I just had sex!'. And you know what I still haven't said those words But another 5 words I didn't think I would be saying 'Robocop is actually pretty entertaining!" I am going to say right now.

 

Robocop is actually pretty entertaining!

[baumer]

I liked it quite a bit.8/10

[The Stingray]

I haven't seen it so I can't pass judgement, but rukaio's review points to some of the fears I had when I saw the pre-release footage. I can't stand blatant messages being shoved down my throat. That and action scenes set to shitty, direct-to-video rock/metal music. Also, a PG-13 RoboCop movie don't gel with me.

 

PS: Rukaio, what's that cool action scene on your sig?

[Phil in the Blank]

I didn't really feel that the message was 'shoved down my throat'.

[rukaio101]

I didn't really feel that the message was 'shoved down my throat'.

Seriously? The entire opening bit felt like one long 'Get it?! They're just like drones! And that makes them bad! Look, SLJ is playing a jerkass far-right commentator who supports them so obviously you're suppose to dislike them! See, we're inter-cutting shots of civilians looking terrified as SLJ talks about how the drones make them feel safe! Now they just machine-gunned a child with a knife! That makes them bad! Aren't we just so fucking subtle?!' 

 

PS: Rukaio, what's that cool action scene on your sig?

Attack on Titan.

[Jessie]

I didn't really feel that the message was 'shoved down my throat'.

 

Yeah me neither. It's funny, a month ago people were complaining that this would be just a poor excuse for an action remake. The film tried to be different and tried exploring more ideas and those same people are now complaining that their was too much of it lol. This film was better than it had any right to be but people still complain like it's the end of the world. Did we really expect a masterpiece when we saw this? no, yet somehow with the low expectation we all went in with, people are still able to hate it. Jokes on them I say.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Jessie