Imagine that the machine is the slick action movie and the man inside is the thriller with a satirical edge. Which one wins out? In this remake of RoboCop, unfortunately the former. Still, it's a really awesome machine.
Like so many remakes of films from the 1980s, this essentially has no reason to exist. The original is a violent, darkly hilarious take on revenge films and corporate corruption. In a bloodless PG-13 update, there's little time for such nuance.
Luckily, Brazilian director José Padilha knows how to stage an action scene perfectly, using as many practical effects as possible. The editing is also top-notch. You can actually see what's happening. The only downside is it occasionally feels too much like a video game.
Saving it from being all machine is Gary Oldman as the doctor who designs the robotics that save the life of Det. Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman). He genuinely wants to use this technology to improve society. But since he's on the payroll of Omnicorp, led by a terrifically oily Michael Keaton, he keeps messing with what already works to please his bosses, taking away Alex's humanity in the process.
This shouldn't work at all, so the fact that any of it does is something of a miracle. One of the film's strongest elements, though your mileage may vary, is Samuel L. Jackson's performance as Pat Novak, the host of a Fox News-style program that bears a striking similarity to the one Roger Allam presided over in V for Vendetta. He dishes out pro-business propaganda and asks loaded questions like, "Does this make Congress pro-crime?" I wanted more of this and less of the shoot-outs.
There's a better movie lurking somewhere deep inside this version of RoboCop. It's there in the dramatic scenes with Abbie Cornish as Alex's wife. It's there in the confrontation between Alex and the chief of police (Marianne Jean-Baptiste). But those keep getting pushed aside in favor of more gunplay and motorcycle chases.
Could this remake of RoboCop have been great? Absolutely. Is it the complete disaster it could have been? Absolutely not. There's a solid action movie here with a few elements that give it some intelligence and heft. The latter could have been stronger were they not always deferring to the part of the brain that likes to see explosions.
