Why remake robocop

Photo: Sony Pictures. Filed under: Movies. Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: RoboCop and its remake show how much our visions of the future have changed.

Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Part of Imagining the next future. Peter Weller in RoboCop. Photo: Orion Pictures. Image: Sony Pictures. Imagining the next future. Are we giving up our freedom unwittingly in favour of faster and better technology? Are we becoming a prisoner of our own smart phones and tablets? Like RoboCop himself, the remake may have been conceived by its studio executives for a cold and cynical purposes it was originally commissioned as a 3D film in the wake of Avatar , but we get no sense that Jose Padilha has approached the project with the same mindset.

His film favours political commentary and drama over relentless action, exploring issues of fascism and technological control. Where RoboCop really succeeds, though, is in its attempt to distinguish itself from the classic original rather than upstage it. The Elite Squad films were wrongly castigated by some critics for their perceived fascism — the assumption being that by showing their events from the point of view of a ruthless special operations cop, the films were somehow condoning their violent actions.

But Padilha is no more on the side of fascism than Martin Scorsese is on the side of the white collar crooks in The Wolf Of Wall Street ; Padilha uses these characters to highlight a real-world injustice — namely, injustice on the streets of Rio de Janeiro.

Padilha takes a similar approach to RoboCop , applying his own interests to a science fiction film that pitches rich philosophical and political themes at a broad audience. For a certain type of film-minded person, the RoboCop is a pivotal point in the history of post-corporate Hollywood. Perspectives on Verhoeven shift constantly: The general consensus among cinephiles now is that he was the second coming of Douglas Sirk, a filmmaker who couched deep themes and scandalous perversity within the bounds of popular genre.

For Sirk, it was the soap-operatic melodrama; for Verhoeven, it was uber-violent action fests and uber-sexual erotic thrillers. Somehow, even with the pre-digital videotape aesthetic, the original RoboCop feels more of the moment than the new one: More cynical, much funnier, but also possessing greater clarity about the central individual-versus-the-corporation storyline that dominates every iteration of the RoboCop myth.

The scene is played for maximum pathos. Abbie Cornish cries. Law enforcement has been privatized; in the first scene at the police station, some of the cops are talking about going on strike. In the new movie, Kinnaman is a badass detective chasing down a big-time bad guy; in the original, Murphy is just a beat cop.

At the beginning, he starts work at the worst precinct in town. This was no accident. Soon enough, Murphy does die — and he really dies , no heartbeat, total flatline. IndecentLouie Dec 11, Details Edit. Release date February 6, United States. United States. Technical specs Edit. Runtime 1 hour 48 minutes. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content.

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