Obviously
horrified by this disturbing scene, God intervenes and makes Murphy's
car alarm start going off. He can't turn it off via his remote start,
so he goes outside to check it out. As he opens the door his car
blows up and takes him out. So... it was a bomb? Why did it take so
long to go off? Was it on a timer? If so, what would have happened if
he didn't open the door? Or was Vallon controlling it, and just
waiting for the best possible moment to screw with Murphy? If THAT'S
the case, then why- RHARGHH, screw this. I don't think they could
have found a dumber way to make him Robocop.
We cut to later
where OmniCorp is meeting with Clara to get her to sign off on making
Murphy into a machine. She's not very smart, so of course she does.
This is SO bad in comparison to the original which I know is like
saying water is wet, but it just makes no sense. In the original OCP
faked Murphy's death to the world so they could do whatever they
wanted to him, because they were completely immoral and only cared
about their means. Here, they go about the whole thing legally which
completely undercuts the entire evil corporation aspect that drove
the whole damn 1987 version. Like so many other things already, I'll
bring this up later.
Three months later
Norton awakens Murphy in a metal harness and reveals he is now a
cyborg. Wait, Murphy still has his mind? The hell?! Why wouldn't they
robo-lobotimize him so he doesn't freak out... like he goes on to do.
He swats down Norton and starts running, leaving the complex as it's
revealed the operating lab is in the middle of a Chinese rice
paddy... for some reason. It looked like Norton had a fully
functional lab back in Detroit, why go ALL the way out to China for
this?
That's an easy
answer. As I've mentioned
before more and more of today's
movies are being made with China in mind, so setting part of this
film there would only help it's chances of getting shown there.
Mission accomplished! As he runs outside the complex we see it's
being patrolled by EDs, who do not fire on him because their Heads Up
Displays tell them not to fire on OmniCorp property. I know I've
already overloaded the note-taking section of your brain, but keep
this in mind for later on.
Norton, who's been
trying to talk him down via radio the entire time, finally says
“screw this!” and shuts him down. Murphy wakes up back in the
harness, telling Norton to “show him”. Norton holds up a giant
mirror to show him what he now looks like, but I guess decides this
isn't a big enough shock so he has all of his cybernetics removed so
he can see all the organics he has left which is basically his head,
lungs, and one of his hands.
Are we watching a
Hellraiser movie now? I'm thinking they wanted to have a more
horrific visual than the Toxic Waste Mutant from the first movie, and
boy did they accomplish that! Murphy rightfully tells Norton that he
wants to die, but Norton talks him out of it by playing the “what
about your family?” card. It's worth noting here Oldman does a
better job of infusing emotion into Murphy and Clara's relationship
just by TALKING about it than the actors themselves did SHOWING it.
After the pep talk
from Norton, Murphy is ready to make this an action movie. We go to
him getting weapons training from Mattox, who gives him the signature
Auto-9 pistol. Ha ha, just kidding, it's a TSR-66 TASER pistol
because when you think Robocop you think of him tasing bros dammit!
Murphy also gets a modified M2 battle rifle which does shoot actual
bullets, but guess which gun gets the starring role in the movie?
Mattox warns him
his body armour is powerful but is weak against .50 caliber bullets.
Don't worry about that, I'm sure it was a just a throwaway line that
won't be brought up later on when Robocop inevitably turns against
OmniCorp. It's pure coincidence they earlier mentioned the ED-209s
fire .50 caliber shells, HONEST.
It's
time for his first battle test against an EM-208, the goal to rescue
hostages in record time. Mattox is established as HATING Murphy for
no real good reason other than the fact that “organics in machines
are a huge step backwards”. It... does not really work for a guy
that's ostensibly one of the bigger villains of the movie. Scratch
that, villain is way too strong of a word to use for this movie,
let's go with “antagonist”. Mattox
condescendingly calls Murphy “Tin Man” and plays the song “If I
Only Had A Brain” during the training exercise. The entire damn
song. Murphy and a 208 shooting virtual people is set to “If I Only
Had A Brain”.
The 208 easily
wins, as Murphy is hesitant to shoot at the kidnappers because one is
holding a kid hostage. Mattox says “I wouldn't buy that for a
dollar!” at Murphy's performance as I throw my remote through the
TV. THIS is the moment the movie elevated itself into Man Of Steel-bad and we're barely 45
minutes in.
It's like they
wrote that just to piss off the old fans, I can think of no other
reason for that line's existence. I can already tell this is going to
be a multipart review, so let's just press on ahead. Norton flies ALL
THE WAY back to Detroit just to tell Sellars about Murphy's
performance. A bit earlier Murphy called his wife via video phone for
a scene that did nothing so I didn't even bother with it, Norton
couldn't have called Sellars to tell him this? A straight shot from
Detroit to China is like 14 hours, he flew all that way for this
nonvital information?
Sellars tells him
to improve Murphy's performance, no matter what, so Norton flies all
the way back to China to implant some kind of microchip in Murphy's
brain that lets him feel human emotions. No wait, that's Data from
Star Trek. This chip PREVENTS him from learning human emotions. Nope,
that's the Terminator. This chip will let him process data faster or
something.
We go back to
Detroit again as Sellars and Yes Man discuss the latest test polls
for Robocop. Sellars isn't happy with the numbers, he wants Robocop
to look more tactical so tells Yes Man to make his armour black.
Back to China again, as we follow a parade of SUVs driving up to the
OmniCorp testing facility as BATMAN gets out of one of them! Holy
crap, this movie just got totally awe- oh.
It's
just the new Robocop suit.
I actually had
almost no issues with the redesigned suit, the only exception being
how small his visor was. I thought it was a very nice update,
modernized without straying too far from the original, very pleasing
all around. But this freaking thing, it's just Batman without his
cape. They didn't even TRY. Hmm,
I think I just found the tagline for this movie!
The final test is
Murphy vs. Mattox and a room full of 208s, which he easily wins
thanks to hypercut editing that makes it impossible to tell who is
firing from where. Norton reveals when his visor is down, the
microchip implanted in Murphy's brain takes over and runs the
OmniCorp drone software. The... same software the 208s have so why
are they losing so badly right now? Huh, really thought that one
through didn't they?
Norton says the
beauty of this is Murphy THINKS he's in control when his visor is
down, even though he actually isn't. Yes Woman says this is illegal,
but Sellars is all “yeah whatever, we're never going to mention
this again in the movie so let it ride”. Norton's character pretty
much just lost any sympathy here, as he's gone way deep into mad
scientist territory now.
One last thing,
this battle is set to possibly the WORST recorded song in the history
of the world. It's this horrible rock instrumental that wouldn't be
out of place in a biker bar circa 1983 and then breaks into a guy
yodeling. You know a movie is bad when I'm forced to even criticize
the score. Alex is sent home,
where he finally gets reunited with his family in a scene that is
totally emotionless AND pointless. This is where Kinnaman and Cornish
REALLY earn that upcoming Worst Screen Combo nomination they have
coming, they don't even TRY to project any kind of emotion into
this.
We cut to
our umpteenth cut of the movie as we go to the outside of the police
HQ for Robocop's unveiling to the world. This is also probably the
stupidest scene in an entire movie of stupid, as just minutes before
Murphy's unveiling, Norton tells him they're going to upload the
ENTIRE FUCKING POLICE DATABASE directly into his brain. Like 800
kajillion terabytes of data, all into his head at once. You'll NEVER
guess what happens next. What's that? Oh, you say he gets completely
overwhelmed by this much data and starts having seizures? Wow, you
must have a brain, something
no one in the creation of the film clearly had.
I'm not even going
to bring up why they'd have to download it into his brain when this
VERY second I'm STREAMING this movie on Flixster via the almighty
Cloud, but instead just ask the most obvious question in the world:
why would they do this RIGHT before his press conference? When he
starts spazzing out they're all “Fix it! Fix it!” and Norton is
all “I have no fucking idea what to do, we've never done anything
like this before!”.
God, this freaking
movie. So Norton comes up with the idea of pumping drugs into Murphy
that “lower his dopamine levels” that even him out and turn him
into a brain dead emotionless husk. On his way to his podium he
totally ignores his family, but it could be they have such a
non-presence he didn't even notice them. As he takes the podium he
starts scanning the crowd, his database able to instantly tell if
they're wanted for crimes or not.
He finds a man
standing almost dead center that has outstanding warrants for rape,
murder, arson, and WHY THE FUCK WOULD HE COME TO A POLICE STATION?!
Why isn't he in Mexico right now with a hilariously oversized hat
on?!? At this point I almost have to respect this movie for the level
of “We Don't Care”-ness that's going on here. Robocop jumps into
the crowd and starts firing at the guy, tasing his ass into custody.
OmniCorp is
watching the Novak Element, where Novak applauds Murphy and dubs him
“Robocop” in the first actual usage of the name in the movie.
Norton wants Murphy taken off the streets because he's worried about
him being a drug-addled loose cannon now, but Sellars is like “aww
hell no dawg!”. Kim says something at the press conference caused
his poor reaction to the data download that was “beyond chemistry
or physics”, which Yes Woman mockingly replies “Like what? His
SOUL?”. Alrighty then.
That's how it's going to be, huh movie? Fine. Paul Verhoeven himself
has called Robocop an American Jesus story, with his ultraviolent
death to his resurrection to saving the people from evil. There's
even a subtle “walking on water” scene towards the end that a lot
of people missed.
It's done
perfectly in the movie, you might not even think about it until your
37th repeat viewing of
the movie when you're like “ohhhh yeah”. It doesn't hit you over
the head with it, and it's so non-intrusive you don't even have to
acknowledge it if you don't want to. But no, let's throw all of that
out the window and just outright bring up stuff like souls here. The
only thing missing from this scene as a freeze frame and a caption
saying “THIS IS DEEP.”.
I truly believe
the writer of this movie HATED the original Robocop and wrote this
whole movie as a mocking parody of it, I can't think of any other
reason at this point why lines like that exist. Skipping over more
boring family stuff about Clara trying to see Murphy and being denied
by Sellars, we see the chief of police has given Murphy free reign on
all open cases in the precinct. He can take over anyone's case at
anytime, which is yet ANOTHER thing I want you to remember. Are you
able to keep track of all this stuff? Because I'm not! Let's recap:
-PG-13 killing the
movie
-Norton telling Robohands that emotions will
upset his robotics-OmniCorp operating within the letter of the law
-ED-209's not firing on Murphy in China
-Murphy getting full control of all open cases in Detroit
Whew! That's a
lot! What a tightly scripted movie this is. Hey, remember in the
first movie when they showed Robocop driving around Detroit stopping
crimes and saving people? Well, even THIS movie realized that was
probably a good idea so they try it here. Robocop is in pursuit of a
drug lord, so he shakes down one of his cronies for his location. And
once again, all tone goes out the freaking window for more comedy. We
get to see Murphy's Heads Up Display while he interrogates the creep
and it says he's “totally stoned”.
Yeah, ha hah.
“Totally stoned” becomes official medical terminology in the
future? The guy gives up his boss, so Robocop heads to his building
for a remake of the drug lab shootout from the original. And to the
surprise of no one, it's as nonviolent as possible as well as being
COMPLETELY POINTLESS because none of these have criminals have
anything to do with Vallon. He's still our bad guy, right? I forgot,
I haven't seen him in hours.
Meanwhile, Sellars
meets with Mattox, whom he secretly gives control of Murphy because
he doesn't trust Norton. THANK GOD ANOTHER SUBPLOT! Lord knows this
movie needed more of those. Next Sellars goes on The Novak Effect for
a scene that accidentally points out one of the movie's absolute
biggest flaws. Novak starts his show off with this line:
“He brought
peace to this country's most violent city...”
Did he? When? No,
better question, WHERE? Did Robocop take a trip to Baltimore or
Washington DC during one of the multiple times I fell asleep during
this movie? Detroit in the 1987 movie looked like a total urban
hell, with tons of destroyed building and flaming barrels as far as
the eye could see.
Detroit looks like
a PARADISE in this freaking movie. Hell, it's probably the nicest
looking city I've seen in a movie in years. We NEVER see crime
running rampant in the streets, which was one of the most crucial
elements of the first movie. Boddicker ruled the streets with a
bloody fist, Vallon sits at nice little cafes and has tea. It really
undercuts the film's plot of “we NEED drones in America to give us
a fighting chance against crime” when we don't see any of the damn
crime!
The Novak Element
is another Dreyfus vs. Sellars debate, only this time Sellars has the
upper hand. Dreyfus starts to make a point but Novak cuts him off ala
Bill O'Reilly, as he looks straight at the camera and wonders if the
United States Senate has become pro-crime. Like all of his scenes
this would have been hilariously subversive if they weren't playing
them so damn straight! A much less serious actor would have helped
here.
Clara, sick and
tired of OmniCorp brushing her off, just straight up confronts Murphy
on the street. She implores him to come home because their family is
falling apart, their son needs him, she needs him, blah blah blah,
these Clara scenes are cinematic DEATH. Not that this film is surging
with energy, but everytime she's on screen she sucks ALL of it out
with her stonefaced “acting”. Murphy ignores her and drives away
on his bike, but again it could be he didn't even see her because of
her total lack of screen presence
Or maybe not. As
he drives, he looks up footage of his family being hounded by the
media. OmniCorp is able to see him doing this, as they are constantly
monitoring his Heads Up Display. Kim says he's overriding his system
priorities to watch his family instead of crime. Say what? He has
priorities? What are they? Ohhhhh that's right, THEY NEVER TELL US. Murphy goes home,
reviewing camera footage of his crime scene because again, Detroit
has cameras ever 2.3 feet. How a crime EVER happens in this city is
beyond my knowledge. Norton's displays shows he's overriding the
drugs in his system and getting his dopamine levels back to normal...
somehow.
Murphy shakes down
the arms dealer Jerry from the very beginning for Vallon's
whereabouts. Vallon gets a call from his anonymous tipster that
Robocop is on the way, as he readies his base for an assault. Vallon
turns off all the lights in the building, and here's the part where I
wanted you to remember the PG-13 nonsense. THE ENTIRE SHOOTOUT is
filmed in either pure dark illuminated by muzzles flashes or night
vision, so it can be as bloodless as possible. This is so idiotic
and poorly conceived I wasn't even aware Vallon died until a helpful
on screen pop up told me.
Not quite the
death of Boddicker, is it? This movie was doomed from the start, but
making it PG-13 destroyed any chance it had at being remotely
captivating. I'm not saying a movie needs endless blood and guts to
be good, but when you're dealing with ROBOCOP it might not be a bad
idea yeah? ESPECIALLY when we're dealing with the Big Bad dying via
video game shit. That gun battle
wouldn't have even got an “M” rating. Also, did you find that
satisfying at all? Did it bring ANY kind of closure to this mess of a
story at all? I think even the movie realized this, as Robocop scans
one of the thug's guns and findings the fingerprints of the Idiots on
it. Because police officers would totally leave their prints on
stolen guns.
Click here for Part 3!
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