Back when I was 16 or so, I saw RoboCop twice on the same day… the first time it blew me away… the second time was sharing it with a friend. I’d never done that before. My point being: I loved the original RoboCop.
So I went to see the remake assuming it wasn’t going to be great though some of the reviews have been better than expected. And, you know, this unnecessary remake is better than it has any right to be. It’s not a great movie, it doesn’t approach the action, the satire, the pathos, or the violence of the original, but it is a solid, well made movie with some good (but not great action) that doesn’t suffer being a hollow remake. The only real problems with the movie are a little in the script, imperfect action direction, and some pacing. This is the best kind of remake… it doesn’t try to recreate the original and it updates and changes its themes to something different. Similar plot, different ideas.
Random thoughts… the lead actor is only ok. There’s a LOT of talky board room scenes… a surprising amount of kind of flabby chit chat while the movie makes efforts to tell a smart, not-dumb action flick. It’s not always successful… the movie isn’t as smart and original in its sci-fi themes as it kind of seems to think it is. But I can largely forgive this since it tries and isn’t aggressively dumb. Satire… the original was all about satire. This one? It has some satirical moments but it’s largely quite serious. Villains? Not as memorable…
The opening sequence in Tehran is pretty amazing and it never quite gets back to that. It uses the RoboCop theme music occasionally and it made me super happy. It’s set in Detroit… but it’s not really about Detroit, crime running rampant, the cops, etc. I miss that. This is a PG-13 movie – some peppered cussing, a lot of bloodless violence, etc. It doesn’t FEEL as PG-13 as a lot of PG-13 movies feel though.
Anyhow, this is a slickly produced, imperfect, but remarkably good movie (compared to what it could have been… and what the Total Recall remake ended up being). It’s not a disaster.
Score: 81