Robocop-Starring Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton
7 out of 10
Jack McAuslan ’16
THE ROUNDUP
The new “Robocop” certainly brings back some of the magic of the original 1987 movie.
The first thing you need to know about the knew one is that it’s rated PG-13, whereas the original was rated R.
The second thing you need to know is that the plot is different.
Detroit police officer Alex Murphy, played by Kinnaman, is seriously injured and is riding the thin line between life and death when his wife, Clara (Abbie Cornish), decides to allow Raymond Sellars’ (Michael Keaton) company to do everything possible to save Murphy.
Dr. Dennett Norton, played by Oldman, uses robotic body parts to save Murphy’s life.
Sellars’ plan is to use Murphy’s new body as the ultimate police officer who never needs to eat, sleep or even think about what he is doing.
The original version was famous for being ridiculously violent.
It was part of what made that movie such a fun movie to watch.
The new ‘Robocop’, however, is not nearly as violent.
A lot of the bullets used to take down bad guys are just stun guns.
I don’t think the new version necessarily needs to be insanely violent though.
A big part of the movie is how the new Murphy handles hostile situations.
The action scenes are different than the original scenes but the story is much more interesting.
The action scenes may not be as explosive as the old ones but there is no question about the fact that they look more realistic and are much more planned out than the original’s.
Of course, this is a remake of a movie from the ’80s, which means it has to keep some of it’s silly and unrealistic dialogue.
One scene, which is clearly supposed to be a serious and heart-wrenching moment, just made me giggle because it was silly the way the dialogue played out.
So the writing is a little funny, and the acting is good for the most part but can be very unrealistic at times.
There is one huge problem, among a few small ones:
The way the camera followed Murphy in action scenes gave me a headache.
The camera is constantly shaking around and everything that you want to see is completely blurry or not in the shot.
Sometimes it was hard to know what the camera was pointing at.
“Robocop” is a worthy remake of the original.
It may have lost some of the magic that made the original such a classic, but with 20th century sci-fi movies this is usually the case.