My brothers and I seriously do NOT understand why so many people are hating on this movie!
Movie Review: Robocop (2014)
This is not your daddy's Robocop.
Robocop had a lot of heart. It takes its time telling the story of Alex Murphy before he was Robocop. Was it long? Yeah, it was a bit long. Was it useless? Definitely not. The "prologue" gave us an appreciation of his humanity - a focal point of this movie's story.
Robocop Begins.
Joel Kinnaman did justice to Alex Murphy's journey from man to machine to man. His speech pattern and facial expression repeatedly shift from normal-Alex to Robo-Alex and it's delivered naturally and distinctly. And his pain, while subtle, resonates throughout the movie.
"Did you cut your hair Alex?"
Most of the movie admittedly threads along Murphy's personal life and the machinations of OmniCorp more than Robocop's trademark action sequences. But when they do come, it's made up for by being impressively fast-paced, energetic, and flashy! POV switches are efficiently utilized, making it seem that we were playing a crazy intense robot video game!
"Drop it, creep."
Robocop himself is pretty cool! The sleek, jet-black redesign? The faster, more dynamic suit? Even when I already saw it in the trailers, the first time Alex is shown in the suit made me whisper "F, yeah!" to myself. And it's wicked cool watching him actually fight crime and do some detective-ing using his 100mbps computer brain!
Robocop 2.0 (But glad they showed us the original design too!)
The villains were your cliche corporate D-bags but never felt absurdly vile. (Except may for Jay Baruchel who felt cartoon-y) Their intentions and actions were grounded to preserving the company. Gary Oldman's Dr. Dennet Norton is the most engaging character in the movie. He evolves on a philosophical level, as he struggled with drawing a line in a company that insists on pushing the line further and further.
OmniCreeps
So Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto. (It had to be said) While other people would probably forgo all the drama, I welcome it. The emotional and philosophical weight made Robocop a more complex character. And even though it may not have been as violent as the original series, it was by no means, a bad movie. The movie spent so much time on the creation of Robocop that this should have been called "The Birth of Robocop" or "Robocop Begins". But now that we can do away with the origin story, here's hoping they make a sequel and give us more of that high-energy action and intricate villain schemes.
MICMIC RATING: 7.5/10
PS. SPOILER: The mirror scene with Alex and Dr. Norton was easily one of the most macabre and gripping scenes I've seen in a "superhero" movie. It was just great!
Also, one of the things I didn't enjoy as much though was the satirical Novak character. Pat Novak is a motor-mouth political journalist who presents a ridiculously one sided view. He's pro-robot law enforcement. And I feel like he was just a tool so that the audience would emotionally side with the anti-robot law without necessarily rebutting any of the major arguments like robots WOULD save lives, and they ARE incorruptible. In the end, the moral debate on robot law felt superficial, and Novak's swan song ends up just annoying the hell out of me.
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