The makers of this 2014 version of Robocop have gone out of their way to take a different angle on the familiar themes and material, to the extent that it really should not be compared with the original film. For the most part, Verhoeven's sharp satire, comedy and uber-violence have been replaced by what is essentially a police thriller with the man-in-a-robo-suit concept tagged on, and what it lacks in crowd-pleasing bombast (the lawyer getting blasted, a convincing baddie, McCrane's toxic waste squelch) is made up for by ramping up the 'human' drama - a Borg Queen-style disassembly sequence and Robo being reunited with his family come closest. Padilha clearly knows how to stage a shoot-out, and performances come to the rescue frequently: Kinnaman is satisfactory (and improving as an actor), but Oldman, Jackson, Cornish and especially Keaton are all fine. There are niggles aplenty: Basil Poledouris's wonderful iconic music occasionally intrudes and feels misplaced in an otherwise generic score, the effects are well done (sorry Phil Tippett, the ED-209s are great if underused here) if occasionally having the matt unreality sheen of The Phantom Menace, and Murphy apparently suffers 'fourth degree burns over 80% of his body' although his clothes evade any evidence of this. The political (local, national and global) concerns make Robocop 2014 feel very contemporary, and it is certainly better than the nasty 2 and the deplorable 3, but 'effective' does not quite feel like enough here.
No comments:
Post a Comment