Rebuilt and remade

There’s a slew of ’80s remakes getting thrown at us lately. Endless Love and About Last Night both got re-dos just in time for Valentine’s Day.

On that very same day, a day of candy and heart-shaped cards, MGM released an updated version of a very different sort of film, that being Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 ultra-violent satiric masterpiece, RoboCop.

The idea to reboot RoboCop has been kicking around for years. The last RoboCop, the remarkably awful RoboCop 3, came out more than 20 years ago. At one point, director Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream) was attached to helm, and that gave geeks and fanboys cause for rejoicing. Alas, Aronofsky dropped out to make Black Swan instead. Oh, well—a chance for legendary coolness got squandered.

In stepped Brazilian director Jose Padilha (Elite Squad), who eventually received a mandate to produce a PG-13 RoboCop (as opposed to the hard-R original) so that more money could be made upon its release. After a tumultuous production, we have the result.

And that result? Not that bad … not bad at all.

Padilha and writer Joshua Zetumer wisely go for something very different this time out. The new RoboCop is still subversive, and perhaps satirical when it comes to its presentation of the media. Conversely, this one has a little more heart and emotion than the nasty original.

Now, normally, I’d cry foul at this sort of thing, because I do love my RoboCop bloody, but a strong cast and a visually sound presentation lead to a movie that is, at the least, worth watching even if it pales in comparison to Verhoeven’s insane incarnation.

Joel Kinnaman steps into the role of Alex Murphy, a Detroit cop in the year 2028 who gets himself blown up after causing too much trouble for a criminal kingpin. Murphy, with the permission of his wife (Abbie Cornish), has his life saved by being placed into an armored endoskeleton with the purpose of making him a law enforcement superhero.

In the original, Murphy (well played by Peter Weller) started his crime crusade not really knowing who he was, with memories suppressed. He eventually figured out his identity and solved his own murder.

The new film drastically diverts from the original, having its Murphy freak out upon waking up as a robot, fully cognizant of who he is. It’s only when his emotional stability comes into question that his doctor (Gary Oldman) decides to mess with his brain and shoot him full of dopamine, turning him into a robot zombie.

I heard about this twist in advance, and I didn’t like the sound of it. Alas, the idea of a man knowing full well that he has been turned into a cyborg is a relatively scintillating cinematic topic, and it’s handled well. Murphy’s wife and kid play a bigger part in this story, and that turns out to be fine.

This is still, very much, a RoboCop movie even with the emotional factor and decreased violence. Michael Keaton represents the evil corporation that creates RoboCop. His Raymond Sellars is evil in a more understated way than Ronny Cox’s Dick Jones from the ’87 film, but he’s just as sinister. Michael K. Williams essentially takes over the loyal partner role played by Nancy Allen in the original.

Jackie Earle Haley gets one of his funniest roles ever as a militaristic policeman, while Samuel L. Jackson gets to scream as a sensationalistic talk show host. I guess Jackson is essentially taking over the role played by Leeza Gibbons in the original.

The movie also contains some clever winks to the original, including an army of ED-209s—the cumbersome war machine that fell down the stairs squealing in the original—and a nod to the original look of the RoboCop suit before Keaton’s character switches it to a black model.

RoboCop is a remake that totally rewrites an original in a way that won’t piss off its legions of fans. One hundred years from now, if anybody is watching RoboCop movies, I imagine the Verhoeven film will still be the one most in favor. The new one amounts to a decent enough curio, but it’s not a classic.