Half Robot, Half Man, All Cop! RoboCop! The shiny
metal protector of Detroit
City
The first trailer for Jose Padilha’s Robocop remake is
out and it’s turning some heads. Some away in disgust, and others round and
round with unnatural joy. We see the future of Detroit City Detroit Detroit
We meet street cop Alex Murphy in a rain soaked alley
as his partner is gunned down. Later, possibly targeted by the same people,
Officer Murphy’s car is blown the hell up with him perilously close to it.
Near death, missing a few limbs and with 4th
degree burns coving his shattered body, Alex’s only hope is to be rebuilt by
OmniCorp, a shady military-industrial corporation who are at the forefront of
robotics. Sam Jackson is there, because this is a film that exists, and he
explains that we’re at the dawn of a new beginning.
Michael Keaton (BATMAN!) is the man at the top of this
pile and he says he wants to put a man inside the machine. Because he’s Batman,
he gets exactly what he wants and RoboCop is born.
Then the differences creep in, from Paul Verhoeven’s
original to now. RoboCop appears to be aware that he’s Alex Murphy this time
around, rather than discovering it later on. Also we get to see his face behind
the visor a lot more often because these days it’s all about the actor not the
character. Doesn’t matter if it takes away from the movie, we spent a lot of
money on Joel Kinnaman so we wanna see the bloody guy.
Also instead of just a human face, RoboCop also has
one remaining human hand. I imagine this is gonna come up at some point in the
movie where they decide to let him keep his undamaged hand and it works in his
favour somehow.
The extra interest in his family is a little annoying,
because that’s what hamstrung World War Z. All that extra stuff with his bloody
kids and wife took away from what we went to that movie see, and it’s possible
we’re getting the same here. We can sympathise with a character without needing
to see his tearful wife and button-nosed child. The original RoboCop had just
as much pathos and we barely saw his family at all. They did the whole thing through
the his partner and friend instead, which kept the story with the police.
He’s
RoboCOP after all, not RoboHUSBAND.
All that is minor though. MINOR… compared to my only
real gripe with what I see in this trailer. RoboCop starts off as blue and
black and cool. He’s all metallic and cyborg looking, but then half way through
the trailer Michael Keaton rocks up in his Batmobile and demands he be painted
black. Then he spends the rest of the picture looking a knock-off cyber-Batman.
There’s nothing interesting or original about a man in an all black robot suit.
He doesn’t look like a policeman, and that’s what he’s meant to be.
Despite that aesthetic irritation, I still think
RoboCop looks pretty boss and I’m absolutely going to see it.
Check out the trailer below and decide for yourselves.
