Robocop (2014): Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
The year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years – and it’s meant billions for OmniCorp’s bottom line. Now OmniCorp wants to bring their controversial technology to the home front, and they see a golden opportunity to do it. When Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) – a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit – is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp sees their chance for a part-man, part-robot police officer. OmniCorp envisions a RoboCop in every city and even more billions for their shareholders, but they never counted on one thing: there is still a man inside the machine pursuing justice.
Here we have a remake of a cult favorite film from the 80’s. When this was initially announced I could hear the collective groan of the masses and then some especially when it was said to be PG-13. As much as I wasn’t a fan of them remaking this movie I was open to checking it out for the sake of cinema. The film is very similar in story obviously yet it’s also very different. In this version of Robocop Detective Alex Murphy is not a dead cop with implanted memories. He’s very much alive but only with a minimal part of his actual self in tact. The best thing about this though is that in having him alive creates a dramatic take in which you see a man having to deal with what has been done to him and how it affects his family. He also talks just like any other person which was a bit weird to hear at first given what we already know about the character. He does have a partner named Lewis as well but in this version it’s a man. I won’t go into all of the differences but I will say that as it changed the way we look at Robocop it didn’t hurt the film at all. I particularly liked the OmniCorp story and the way they treated Robocop as a part of the company’s marketing strategy. It just made it feel more current than just recycling the original story. The battle sequences were great and since this incarnation of Robocop is faster and agile it made for some exciting action that had me glued to my seat. They did have certain phrases that referenced the original which I thought was a perfect nod to the things we loved the most. I will say that the one thing that I was disappointed that they didn’t include was the satirical commercials that I loved from the original but I almost saw the segments with Samuel L. Jackson as a different take on those. Michael Keaton was a great villain and had plenty of moments where you just wanted to reach in the screen and smack him around and to me that makes a successful bad guy. If you have any hesitation about watching this film then I suggest you just give it a chance and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised that it’s actually a great film in its own right. This is a must see popcorn movie that everyone will enjoy.
Special Features:
Deleted Scenes – A handful of scenes that don’t give too much more information that what was already in the film.
Omnicorp Product Announcement – Various product vignettes that show off OmniCorp’s upcoming robotic line. The PLAY ALL feature would work well here.
RoboCop: Engineered for the 21st Century – A really well done 3-part Behind The Scenes feature that covers the differences and likeness between the original and remake as well as designing the new Robocop and costume fitting with Joel Kinnaman.
