Robo is back! When a film is popular long enough to achieve cult status it does strange things with your memory of said film. Going back and revisiting the original Robocop (in its ultra violent DVD version) was as much fun as I expected. Even reading the more than five pages of continuity and reality errors listed on IMDB did little to take the shine off of one of the great popcorn thrillers on its time (1987).
Now revisiting Robocop in 2014 is a plan fraught with risks and Brazilian born director/documentarian José Padilha hasn’t really helped matters by choosing some elements within the first version to revisit while casting aside others. His more moralistic take is interesting while his almost complete discarding of some of the eighties version’s most humorous elements (mainly the hilarious TV ads) have taken a lot of the fun out. Original director Paul Verhoeven’s biting social satire is sadly missing.
For those familiar with the first version, a spot the differences approach has its charms, while newbie’s are left with a somewhat familiar dynamic. One where big business and its leaders are corrupt and the plucky young upstarts are not. Most of the gray in this story line however is washed out. There are some arresting visual moments and some action scene that filmmakers in the eighties could only have dreamed about but they are used rather predictably here.
What we are left with is a film that looks of its time with current state of the art computer generated graphics instead of dodgy but endearing stop motion animation and a seriousness that drains a lot of the enjoyment out of the ride. It’s still worth seeing as the overriding story arc is one of interest but its chances of being remembered fondly in the decades to come are slim.
Rob Hudson
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