ROBOCOP [2014]

ROBOFLOP


2014, USA
José Padilha
4 // 10




Is bringing back old franchises a revival or necromancy? Is it a good moment to start ignoring every new reboot of an old franchise? Am I missing something? There's only one way to find out!

I had so little faith, so little expectation with this one. I was prepared to be faced with a complete failure, to which I could nod my head and patronisingly say 'I knew it, I absolutely knew it'. I was prepared for the 2014 ROBOCOP to be a bad film. I did everything I could to set the stage for a surprise, for proving me wrong.

Turns out I wasn't. But then again, neither was I right. The tragic thing here is, this film is not good or bad, is not a success or a failure. What is it then? It's a disappointment. Why is it disappointment? Because it can't be bothered. It is a devious beast, the nemesis of a critic - it's just a film. If 'meh' needed an illustration, this film could serve as one perfectly.

You know the drill, it's a remake, comparisons with the original are therefore inevitable. So, cutting to the chase, how does it stack up? Well, it doesn't. Comparing to its 1987 forefather, Padilha's cyborg flick is just a pale shadow because it's not clever enough and it doesn't go far enough. It recreates but does not reinvent. Oh yes, I now... It's all updated and modernised, it does hint at problems and issues that relate to today's world instead of copying the message of the original film but somehow all that feels a bit shoe-horned, forced, slapped on. It takes the original film and makes measured steps to a side instead of coming up with its own original and coherent idea and then just having some little winks to the past as a tribute to the legacy. It lacks its own, distinctive direction and conviction. Even the oh-so-famous main motif is more of an insult to the original score than a homage. And at the same time, in the pursuit of a lower age rating and wider potential audience (gimme moar money!) one of the indispensable staple elements of the original - violence and brutality have been completely neutered. Can you have a PG-13 ROBOCOP (as opposed to the original's R)? Sure you can. Just as much as you can have a jerk marinade without scotch bonnet chillies in it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it serves a purpose, leave it in. I wouldn't insist if José Padilha's version had something else to offer instead, if toning down of the violence was a decision consistent with the specific overall vision, but it isn't. It's just an attempt at making the film more profitable at the cost of integrity. Shame on you.

Speaking of violence, one of my biggest gripes with this film is the attention (or lack of) to the world building. I mean... Everyone who's seen the original has the image of crime-ridden, devastated, gangs-ruled Detroit imprinted in memory. Which, incidentally (and tragically) is what actual Detroit is pretty much like today due to the collapse of the car industry. For a film-maker with a vision it could have been a dream come true, an opportunity to add heaps of authenticity to the film. But no. ROBOCOP A.D. 2014 was shot mostly in Toronto. The sleek, modern and ever-growing Toronto. There's also hardly any feel for the near future setting. It's usually the little things that make all the difference bun in this case the decisions must have been made by the accountants - if it's not essential to the story, let's not spend on it. And as if that wasn't enough, the acting pretty much adds insult to injury with both Keaton and Oldman being as underwhelming as I never thought either of them would be capable of. Joel Kinnaman is just perfectly forgettable and not being able to bring any real presence to neither Alex Murphy nor the RoboCop. Samuel L. Jackson is just a joke. He's not even a character, he's a feature. His only purpose in the whole film is to make a viewer wait for him to start swearing, which is accentuated by the fact that when he does it's all bleeped out as if the director was having a joke on the audience. 'You won't be getting what you were waiting for'. The only character that, at first sight, seems to have some life to him is Rick Mattox (played by Jackie Earle Haley) but even that's only until you realise that he's nothing more than a cheap knock-off copy of Koobus from DISTRICT 9.

Now, I do understand that some films are made just purely for money. The never-ending onslaught of the current remakes and reboots even more so. But even then there's still some room left for decency. Those who can be bothered to try can still produce results that satisfy both the studio's accountants and the audience. But Padilha's ROBOCOP is not such film. It is a film whose only purpose was to bring profit at a lowest possible cost. Sure, it's watchable but at the same time there is simply hardly any reason at all why you should watch this one and not the original.