Yogi Reviews: RoboCop (UPDATE: Drunk review up)

[Yogimus]

Go watch it.

Alcoholism Engage:


Ah, RoboCop. A movie spoken of in hushed and revered tones. One of the "good" ones, a movie that showed that Sci Fi can be intelligent. It was the perfect storm of satire, violence, and precognition. The movie was nearly perfect. Of COURSE someone would make a remake. In a world of remakes, this one caused a lot of controversy. PG-13? For ROBOCOP? SACRILEGE!!!

Calm the fuck down, folks... or did we forget THIS?!?!




Yea... That's robocop 3. He had a jetpack. He fought robot ninjas. There was a little girl with a magic laptop.... none of what I just said was a lie. So all your "This will rape my childhood" arguments are already moot.

Spoilers Below

[spoiler]Let's cover the basics:

1. How true is it to the source material?
- In no way whatsoever, beyond "Robot+Cop=RoboCop". This works WELL for the character and the movie as a whole.
- The world is completely different from the original movie. None of the original plotline exists beyond "Murphy solves his murder"
- It stays away from satire for the most part, however the part it includes falls into two categories: "OUCH that hit home" (Iraq scene) and "Way over the top" (Samuel Jackson)
- 99% reference to the original is sublime. Audio throwbacks with sound effects... catchphrases... well done, none seemed forced.
- This movie only worked BECAUSE it abandoned the source.
- The main flaw of the movie is the need to mirror a specific scene. (Hint: Ending sucks)

2. PG-13 for robocop? REALLY?!?!?! (RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!)
- The movie has plenty of shooting
- The crucifixion by shotgun scene is missing, but THAT SCENE IS NOT NEEDED IN THIS PARTICULAR MOVIE
- RoboCop in this film gets more fucked up than "Murphy" did in the original
- The PG-13 means: No Tits. No closeups of bullet impacts. No torture through violence.
- This RoboCop CHARACTER is SIGNIFICANTLY more violent than the original. He murders motherfuckers. (not "kills". Murders.)

3. What of the characters?
- There are two characters shared between the movies:

A. OCP- (Omni Consumer Products) The company is completely different, and I PERSONALLY do not like the way they portrayed it. The original RoboCop dealt with struggle between middle management vying for power. This movie says "Fuck it" to all that, and immediately removes all depth and motivation from the antagonists, and because audiences are stupid, let's make the CEO be the villain, because fuck you America, you honey-booboo worshiping piles of shits. Sidenote, this movie is 3 ways awesome if you pretend Michael Keaton's character is Bruce Wayne. Michael Keaton single handedly saves the movie by overcoming a shitty part with great acting. All in all, the old OCP is a better character.

B. RoboCop-(Robot Copper) The actor in this movie plays robocop BETTER than the original, IF YOU CAN ACCEPT that he is a different robocop. He is absolutely great. We need to break his character down into two parts:

#The "Suit": Oh lookee, he looks like a tactical fucknugget. This is a valid point, addressed in the film.
#The "cop": Murphy is a much more aggressive cop than in the original.
#The "robot": Film has trouble maintaining the physics of the Robot aspect. The CGI fails to add the appropriate weight when he moves "rapidly". He is too spidermannishly hippety hop for my tastes. Now for the actual "I am a fucking robot wearing bulletproof armor and I will walk into your bullets" aspect of the movie, this one has the old one beat by several Rhode Islands. He is NOT invincible. Finally, the "always face" works.
#The character as a whole: So absolutely different, that comparing this "Murphy" to the old would not be fair to either. Both deal with overlapping issues, and overall it is a wash. There is no Better or worse, only different. Key difference here is the new murphy is allowed to keep his humanity for more of the movie.
#That fucking hand: No real point to it, BUT!!! They never acknowledge it in any way in the movie. Seriously.. it's almost weird... they never fucking refer to it or use it for emotional manipulation in any way.

4. The Plot
- Has shitfuck to do with the old movie.
- Stands well on it's own.
- Avoids dumbfuck "AHA! PLOT TWIST SO WE LOOK SMART!" bullshits.
- Reasonable enough, with the minor gripe of over-reaching on the implied value of the primary hero and his interaction of the villain
- Ending fails to deliver, further information in the characters section. Main beef is the requirement for a showdown, which was taken from the original RoboCop, which HURT THE MOVIE


5. Characters: The plot depends on the characters, and they ALL deliver beautifully.

- ED-209: Meh. Computer generated doesn't feel the same. I miss the old ones. These work VERY WELL however in this world. The opening sequence is AWESOME.
- RoboCop: See above.
- Head OCP villain: Played by Michael Keaton, is a great character. UNFORTUNATELY, he goes completely full retard at the end, and bases his actions on: "BECAUSE THE SCRIPT SAYS SO".
- The "partner": Generic black police partner character, immediately forgettable, his primary purpose is to get shot. Repeatedly.
- The "Police Force": A major character. Less believable than the 1st movie, adequate for what is needed of it. In fact, a major plot point. (and should have been the main plot)
- The "Sub Boss" Rick Maddox is absolutely awesome, and EVERY part of his character works. All of it.
- The Medical team is absolutely unique, and very well played, by commisioner gordon. (Pretend this is the batman universe. it's awesome)

SUB SPOILER: My issues, bitches gripes and complaints
[spoiler]
Bitches: JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN WITH CGI DOESN'T MEAN THE CHARACTER SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO IT!!! You fucking retards. Also, spend 20k on a god-damned prop.
Gripes: That fucking hand. Also, that fucking hand.
Complaints: Ok.. this is a huge spoiler: Michael Keaton runs OCP. A fucking BAJILLION dollar defense contractor based out of Detroit. The robocop program ALONE is run out of multiple countries. He is IMMUNE to robocops, because *jazzhands* reasons! so what would someone who is IMMUNE TO ROBOCOP, a MULTIBILLIONARE, and CONTROLS AN ARMY do? Why take robocop's family hostage, of course.

Mind you, he has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING illegal at all at this point. Not a fucking thing. Like for the whole movie. Not even WRONG. And he takes a family hostage. WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!? All so we can have that ONE SCENE that they felt the need to recreate, and ruin the movie with.[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]

[Netpackrat]

I saw it 20 some years ago, care to jog my memory?

[Yogimus]

New one just came out, trying to get drunk enough for the review

[blackeagle603]

Just saw it this evening. Guys night out. Liked it better than the first.

[Netpackrat]

Just saw it this evening. Guys night out. Liked it better than the first.

That's kind of a low bar to begin with.

[Aesop]

This won't rape my childhood.

Remakes, as a rule, are pure unredeemed shit unless and until they get everything right. It doesn't sound like I have to worry about them even coming close, based on Yogi's review. They are the rap music of cinema, repeating the same noise and stealing brighter people's creative efforts, and calling it something it isn't.

Given that they could simply reshoot the original in Detroit, today, using DHS and the TSA for background, and save gazillions on set decoration, the main question becomes why you'd want to. The original clearly was a documentary shot 20 years early.
This is like reshooting The China Syndrome in Fukushima, and then changing everything.
Or going to Joplin to reshoot Twister, and then making it about an earthquake, because Hollywood.
(And a billionaire who lives in Detroit? Riiiiiiiight, because he can buy the whole town for pocket change, and then look out over his squalid, shitty, dirty snow-covered pestilential hellhole. As opposed to doinking hot chicks all day and living in a hollowed out volcano in the Caribbean. Sh'yeah, as if.)

And if they can't come up with somebody cool enough to be Robocop and Buckaroo Banzai all by himself, fuck 'em, he's too small a star.
(So instead of a movie by a Dutch director who bungles sci-fi and can make a movie about naked Vegas showgirls boring, we get a Swedish actor??? WTF?!? Might as well have made ABBA-cop. Bjorn finally snaps, gets sick of pitch-shifted airhead bitches, gets the band back together, except more like R.E.D., they go to Hollywood, and start capping them right and left. Call my agent, I can have the first draft ready by noon tomorrow, and we can get damn near every pop star to do a cameo for peanuts. Simon Cowell plays the villain. $200M box office in the first month, just in North America.)
If I wanted to see the futuristic version of The Terror Of Tiny Town, I'd have gone to the Old Actor's Home, hired Warwick Davis, and put him in a tinfoil jumpsuit. And it would have kicked this one's ass.

[Yogimus]

New robocop > Buckaroo.

it's Everything else that hurts the effort.

[Kommander]

"Dead or alive your coming with me"

I have to say it's nice to see that the original got the future of detroit so accurate. How does this compare to Dredd?

[Yogimus]

Dredd is the better movie, but this is along those lines. It has no right to be as good as it ended up being.

[blackeagle603]

It's not high art, passable way to pass an evening when you just have to get out of the house -- and the original got worn out on a Groundhog Day endless VHS loop on WesPac.