Movie Review: Robocop (2014)

A few months ago, I watched the whole original Robocop trilogy. While I hadn’t been impressed with the movies, there were some elements I found well done in the movies, especially the bond between Robocop and his partner, Anne Lewis. The trailer for the remake left me rather unsure of what to expect, so I didn’t really have any high hopes and was just curious to see how it would go. One of the things that I found weird is how the look and feel of the movie appeared as if the crew didn’t know whether they were shooting a 1980s movie or a 2010s one. It just seemed that they couldn’t decide.

I am sad that they turned Anne Lewis into a man. I liked the actor who played Lewis in the remake, and was glad for the diversity due to the casting choice. Yet, I was very disappointed that we barely saw him. I understand that they took the whole family aspect with Murphy’s wife and son to a more significant level in this remake (it was actually decently handled with both his wife and their son); but it didn’t require them to drop the professional partnership/friendship. That was a poor choice in my view. I loved the “not bad cop, good cop: bad cop, robocop” scene when Lewis and Murphy suddenly interacted together again to take down their dirty colleagues. It just kind of happened out of the blue. There could have been so much more build up for this! I so wish they had done better with the relationship between Lewis and Murphy.

I was really sad that his superior, Chief Karen Dean, wasn’t clean either, because she was a great character, and seeing a woman of color in a leadership position was something important in the movie. I feel that we see more women than in the original one, but many of them seem to stay on the periphery, which is saddening, as at least some of them could have been main cast (besides being the hero’s wife like Clara is). I would have even been very happy to see Robocop be a woman!

Some of the best things about the movie was the battle between science, corporations, politics and media. Somehow it is secondary in the plot lines, but I think that it was well executed. The use of more advanced technology was also well executed in my view, but I am sorry that they missed on a great opportunity to work on disability awareness. While the work done on Murphy was described at length and the whole “human/machine” aspect felt a bit more developed than in the original trilogy, I don’t understand why they didn’t work on having Murphy really get used to the suit and show more of a training and recovery process. It seemed that suddenly all just went fine (as when he breaks free and escapes the facility before being switched off). It seemed even more counter intuitive because of what we see of Dr. Norton’s work helping people getting used to their prosthetic replacements and blend technology and science for the good of people before to be on board for the Robocop project.