Alex Murphy (Kinnaman), dedicated family man and Detroit police officer, is in pursuit of notorious gangster Antoine Vallon (a sinister turn by Patrick Garrow). Meanwhile, the monolithic OmniCorp is searching for a way to deploy robotic peacekeepers in the police force. They are held back by the Dreyfus Act, which prohibits the use of robots in the US for police and military purposes, due to the lack of empathy robotic enforcers will feel when it comes to innocent bystanders. Michael Keaton is marvellously cynical and calculating in the role of OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars, as the company seeks a way around the Act. They find it in the work of OmniCorp scientist Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) and his new method of combining humans and cybernetics. They just need a seriously injured police officer who is willing to act as a test subject. After a car bomb at his home almost kills him, Alex’s wife Clara consents for Alex to become RoboCop. However, it doesn’t take long for things to get sinister, as crime, corruption, and corporate greed conspire to strip Alex of the last of his humanity.
Despite critical cynicism about messing with a classic, this film has attracted a lot of talent. Kinnaman plays the role of good-man-turned-ambivalent-cyborg with aplomb, balancing the understandable trauma anyone would feel in his situation with cold, robotic behaviour when necessary. The bold choice to give this RoboCop a wife and child could have gone horribly wrong and become mawkishly sentimental, but Abbie Cornish as Clara works perfectly with John Paul Ruttan (in the role of David) to paint a believable picture of a tough woman and a son who just wants his father back. At times the human element of Alex’s separation from his family is the only thing that keeps the film from sliding into mindless action blockbuster territory.
If you are looking for the kind of spectacular violence found in the 1987 RoboCop, you will not be disappointed. Shootouts and explosions are the order of the day, and watching RoboCop in full justice-dispensing action is breathtaking. Modern-day special effects deserve a lot of the credit for this. Alex’s early transformation scenes, the view from his visor, and the battle simulations used to show off RoboCop’s power are all convincing CGI moments which do not distance you from the action.
In terms of plot, you may find yourself occasionally wandering from talk of robotics, only to be pulled back in by new twists in Detroit’s world of criminal conspiracy. Luckily, the story is capably propped up by exposition machine Pat Novak, a worryingly plausible right-wing, pro-cybernetics news reporter whose televised updates on OmniCorp and RoboCop straddle the line between horrifying and amusing. The fact he is played by Samuel L. Jackson certainly adds to his entertainment value.
There are some interesting questions raised, intentionally, when it comes to the issue of “man or machine?” At times the story gets downright chilling: the way even the comparatively benign Norton manipulates Alex is disturbing. OmniCorp conspiring to keep him from his family on the basis that he is now their property is both creepy and alarmingly plausible. After all, if you are rebuilt from components belonging to a company, are you still an individual or do you belong to them? The film gets pretty suspenseful while trying to answer that question.
If you love the original RoboCop with all your heart, it’s still worth seeing this capable reboot. RoboCop may not be the most intellectual or multi-layered movie, but it’s entertaining, at times frightening, and a great way to spend a couple of hours. Give it a shot.
