Robocop

The Horror Of RoboCop

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The Horror Of RoboCop

By

Peter Germany

*Spoiler Warning*

RoboCop is one of the defining movies of the 1980s. It’s gore-filled brutality tied in with its commentary on society make it one of the few movies that almost never holds back, and hits you hard in a way that few films do.

In my personal opinion it is a horror movie. The gore alone puts it into that category but the true horror is what our protagonist, Officer Alex Murphy/RoboCop, goes through during the course of the movie.

He is firstly gunned down on his first day in a new precinct with a gleeful brutality by Clarence Boddicker and his gang, with one final shot to his head. This doesn’t kill him straight away and he is air-lifted to hospital where he does die, only to wake up as a cyborg. He has no memory of what was before. Just what has been since he was turned on.

By this point we’ve seen the gore of officer Murphy’s murder, and that of an OCP executive, but this is where we start slipping into the true horror of the movie. There are two distinct moments. One where RoboCop catches one of his murderers robbing a gas station. This triggers memories that OCP thought they had erased. Then after a nightmare reliving elements of Murphy’s death he comes into contact with Officer Anne Lewis, who’d been his partner when he’d been killed. She told him his name. This adds to RoboCop’s confusion and he goes on a journey of discovery as he solves his own murder.

The final tipping point for him is when he goes to arrest Dick Jones, a OCP Executive, after he has arrested all of the Boddicker gang, including Clarence. This violates one of his Prime Directives and he all but shuts down. He then has a confrontation with an ED-209 android which is Jones’ project at OCP and flees to an underground carpark where he is set upon by S.W.A.T. and his fellow officers, despite his colleagues objections. For the second time he is gunned down, but this time it’s by the police, who are owned by OCP. He is saved by Lewis who get’s him to an abandoned industrial space.

There is a little bonding between him and Lewis, and he takes his helmet off for the first time, and asks about his wife and son, but refers to Murphy like he is someone else.

The police are on strike by this point and Boddicker and his gang have been sent to eliminate RoboCop by Dick Jones. Who has supplied weapons with a little more firepower than Boddicker has access to.

The sequence that follows is fantastic. It’s beautiful set up, played out, and concluded. I won’t talk too much about it here, go and watch the movie, but it’s one of my favourite sequences in cinema.

The movie ends with RoboCop going to OCP and confronting Dick Jones, while there is a board meeting going on. RoboCop reveals his evidence but states that his programming won’t allow him to act against an officer of the company. Jones, having seen the evidence that he himself gave to RoboCop takes the CEO (known only as ‘The Old Man’), hostage at gunpoint (I’ve no idea why there is a gun there after the death at the start of the movie). The Old Man sacks Jones, elbows him in the gut and RoboCop shoots him, leading him to fall out a window and plummet to his death.

The movie ends with The Old Man asking the officers name, and RoboCop replies with a smile and one word ‘Murphy’.

The Hero 

Peter Weller absolutely smashes it as both Alex Murphy and RoboCop. As Murphy he is charming, competent, capable, and seems like the type of police officer you want protecting you. Early on with Lewis he mentions his son and Weller has such an electricity in his eyes and smile that you can see how much he loves his son, and later in flashbacks you see just how much he loved his wife as well. Murphy is presented as a proper family man which Weller makes real.

His integrity and bravery is shown when he is captured by The Boddicker gang. There is no compromising, he knows he’s gonna die and he doesn’t crumple.

As RoboCop Weller takes everything that made Murphy likeable, and locks it away. There is no emotion, no charm, no passion. There’s a strange confidence to RoboCop, but I suspect that is just a ghost of who he had been before his brain was rewired. A little hint that a brain might be able to be rewired, but that doesn’t mean it’s a permanent act.

He doesn’t show any form of emotion until he confronts one of his murderers, Emil Antonowsky, as he’s robbing a gas station. The way Weller responds is spot on.  He discovers his own police record, which lists him as deceased, and the no reaction Weller gives is harrowing. He then goes to his old home that is empty and up for sale. He walks through, having more flashbacks, his emotional energy rising as he moves through this empty house until he gets to an automated realtor thats on a TV screen. Which he punches.

He arrests another member of the Boddicker gang before going after Clarence and the remaining members while they’re negotiating a drug deal, in a cocaine factory. This is a scene of epic proportions. Apparently Peter Weller was listening to Red Rain by Peter Gabriel as he was shooting the scene and it’s bloody beautiful! The scene ends with Clarence Boddicker being strangled by RoboCop after he’s been through through a lot of glass windows and is pretty beat up. This is the big moment where we see conflict in RoboCop. This is the man who took the first and last shots as Alex Murhpy was gunned down. It’s only when Boddicker says that RoboCop is in fact a cop that he stops strangling him.

The scene where RoboCop has taken his helmet off to reveal Alex Murphy is a little hard to watch as Murphy processes what he actually is. Along with the information of his wife and son moving away Weller plays the grief he’s feeling very subtly, there’s a resignation to him, but afterwards we see more of the human than the machine.

That final scene where Murphy smiles, I think is a perfect ending to the film and one that is the pay off of this character that Weller gave us.

The Villains

An element this film needed was that of Kurtwood Smith’s Clarence Boddicker. In my opinion this is one of the greatest villains in cinema. When you focus on him you see that he is not just a violent psychopath, there’s a brain behind the brutality. He’s sharp and has a sophistication that is hidden beneath his brutality. There is a glee that Smith puts into Boddicker that shows how much he’s enjoying being able to play such a vile human being. I’m not familiar with Smith’s acting career but I get the impression he hadn’t had this sort of role that often. The little research I’ve done (thank you IMDB trivia) basically said Smith tended to play intellectual roles but was cast as Boddicker because director Paul Verhoeven felt he looked like Heinrich Himmlier when wearing glasses, that made him look more intelligent as well (a stereotype I loathe), but I don’t think the specs were needed as Smith’s portrayal shows Boddicker as being an incredibly smart person. I’d imagine the characters IQ is quite high.

Even though he is clearly an intelligent person he’s got no morals. He’s a character I love because Smith gave him charm and charisma when this is a murderer, a rapist, and has a long line of other convictions we only get a glimpse of when RoboCop is investigating. Boddicker literally doesn’t care about any one or thing except himself. He shows no remorse when the members of his gang are killed. He’s equally confident in dealing with drug manufacturers or senior executives of major corporations, and you get the feeling he’d kill either if they weren’t going to help him get to his goals. Even when Bob Morton is offering him money to not kill him, he doesn’t even consider it (Boddicker using his tongue to grip the grenade’s pin makes my skin crawl!). He knows Dick Jones is like him in that he’ll do anything to get what he wants, but if he thought Morton could as easily match or exceed Jones’ usefulness then I think he’d have let him live.

Apparently one of Smith’s first scenes was when he was dragged into the police station after being arrested, and it was his idea to spit a mouthful of blood onto a form and curse. This to me is beautiful, because even when he’s in a building full of cops, has been arrested for killing a cop (which RoboCop says) Boddicker still doesn’t fear where he is.

Another little note I saw on IMDB was that when Boddicker goes to see Jones after RoboCop has been gunned down the second time is the secretary he flirts with is Kurtwood Smith’s wife, Joan Pirkle. I love little nods like this.

The other villain of the piece is the beautiful arsehole that is Dick Jones. Ronny Cox plays Jones with a ruthlessness that is a sight to behold. Without Jones, Boddicker wouldn’t have reached the levels of power he has. It’s a relationship where I don’t think either of them really like the other but they know to get what they want, they need the other. Jones couldn’t have regained favour at OCP if he hadn’t had Bob Morton killed off. He wouldn’t have been able to do that without someone like Boddicker, but I suspect he would have found another way to get Morton out of the picture, maybe like Kenny at the start of the movie. It could have taken longer though and I don’t get the impression that Jones has much patience. I think Jones would abandon Boddicker as well if he thought it wasn’t profitable any more, although I suspect that Boddicker wouldn’t take it laying down.

The Score

The sound of the film is very militaristic, and there’s a sense of urgency to it. It fits the tone of the movie and I don’t think it’ll be quite the same if the production had gone a different way with it.

Ann Lewis

Nancy Allen nails the character of Ann Lewis. She played the role with a strong masculine element to it (apparently she wore mens underwear while playing the character, I think the chewing of the gum added to it too), but never is Lewis ridiculed for this. Nor is there any sexualisation of the character or an attempt to make her some sort of love interest to Murphy/RoboCop. If they had done that it would have destroyed a strong portion of Murphy’s character as he was dedicated to his wife.

Lewis is an incredibly competent officer and holds her own against these nasty male villains for the most part. Allen also has a way of taking control in her scenes. With such powerful performances from Peter Weller and Kurtwood Smith in particular some actors got a little lost, thats not a critique of them. Weller and Smith really embodied their characters, and Allen holds her own against them. I think casting her was a stroke of genius because she does have the acting chops to not get lost in the background.

I like the heart she brings to the film as well. There’s a couple of scenes where we need a little softness, and Allen brings that. And then kicks arse in the next scene! It’s great!

“I’d buy that for a dollar!”

The little transitional scenes of the news reports, TV show, and adverts should be out of place, but they add to the feel of society falling the film has.

Bob Morton

Just a quick note on Miguel Ferrer as Bob Morton. I felt for him when he died, although he should have tried to get out the house as opposed to trying to get the grenade, but I did feel for him. Yeah, he had his arsehole moments but overall he seemed like a semi-decent human being, especially for a senior corporate executive. But he had strength, drive, and wasn’t scared to rock the boat. 

RoboCop, on GameBoy

I had this, and it was hard! I don’t think I got very far in it. I vaguely remember persisting but I think I got to a part and couldn’t get past it. One thing that really annoyed me was when you were dealing with the man holding the woman hostage you couldn’t shoot him through the woman’s skirt like RoboCop does in the movie. Very disappointed by that!

Let’s get Bloody!

One of the most talked about elements of RoboCop is the violence and gore. Yes, it is incredibly graphic, but who cares? What in this movie is sugar coated? The only real moment it holds back is with the attempted rape, but even that isn’t easy to watch. I like to think the scumbag who got his crotch shot to nothing had a very painful life from there on.

The world we live in is one of pain, we can pretend it’s not, but it is. All over this planet we are committing vile acts against one another, animals, and the planet itself. So why not see it? We’re exposed to media which tells us a ‘happily ever after’ is attainable for all, which in my opinion can be incredibly detrimental. Life isn’t a bed of roses. Just look at some true crime documentaries. We are a brutal species but we don’t want to be reminded of what we are capable of.

In the gore though we see the villains, who have caused so much pain with their depravity getting their own brutal deaths. One of the most memorable ones is after Emil Antonowsky has driven into the vat of toxic waste and is stumbled about and bumps into the suave Leon Nash, played by Ray Wise, and then stumbles into the path of a speeding car drive by Boddicker. Just a little side note, Ray Wise hadn’t seen Paul McCrane (Antonowsky) in the makeup, so when Nash runs into Antonowsky, his reaction is real.

Nash’s demise is an explosive one as he’s screaming gleefully after dropping tonnes of scrap metal on RoboCop. Boddicker get a spike to his throat and has a little stumble as he beautifully dies, and Dick Jones is shot out a window. The people at the route of the violence, get violet deaths. Unfortunately this doesn’t reflect the real world very often. (I’m not encouraging violence, its just rare that some of the most horrific people get punished for their acts).

This is a brutal film, and if you don’t like heavy violence and gore, then give it a miss. If you’re not sure, ask someone you trust for their opinion. It’s not for everyone and just because life is like that, doesn’t mean you have to watch it. It’s our choice at the end of the day.

Death and Resurrection 

One of my favourite sequences is Murphy being taken off the helicopter, treated, dies, and is then reborn as RoboCop. Most of it is done from his point of view, which is quite chilling because you’re looking up as these people, total strangers, are trying to save your life. What makes this part of the sequence even more harrowing is the people treating Murphy aren’t actors. They’re real life doctors and nurses. This makes the scene incredibly raw and adds a realism to it that is brutal in its coldness. They work through what they would do in that circumstance with an efficiency, professionalism, honestly, and a coldness that I don’t think actors would be able to capture.

After the medics ‘call it’ we get blackness, and then we get views from RoboCop, a few little snippets, including a party and a part where they mention his memory being erased. Then we get RoboCop’s introduction to people in suits. That’s when we get the first taste of what he looks like in the form of a tv screen showing him. Then he goes to Detroit.

The reason why I find this sequence so beautiful is it’s a great portrayal of death and resurrection, but it’s also a mind fuck in that later events show that Alex Murphy probably remembers dying, and being reborn. Can you imagine what that is like? I guess people who have died and been brought back have an insight into it, but to come back to life as not someone else, but something else. That’s one that is going to mess with the brain and just goes to show how strong mentally Alex Murphy is.

“What’s your name, son?”

RoboCop came just a few years after The Terminator, but it wasn’t trying to mimic it. The only real similarities is that they’re both cyborgs. I think there’s parts of Judge Dredd in RoboCop but RoboCop is still it’s own thing. Yes, it takes from other elements, but what doesn’t? We get a unique movie where all of the separate pieces come together to create a tight, well built, beautifully performed, directed movie.

We’re presented a world where a corporation is so powerful it doesn’t think it can buy a city, it’s going to. The Old Man’s legacy is Delta City that is to be built on Detroit. He doesn’t care who and what is bulldozed to achieve this. This is a little too on the nose in regards to corporations feeling they can do what they want. We might not have one as blatant about it as OCP but I don’t think any of us are surprised when corporations get away with, well, murder (allegedly) in some cases.

RoboCop also gives us good and bad, and a little of the in-between. We get the real world turned up to eleven and then put into a location where we don’t ever expect it to happen. There are places in the world where crime is as bold as in RoboCop but we like to think it’s not where we are.

For me the message of this film is; with enough will the person can push through whatever they’re put through. Alex Murphy is literally killed, brought back to life, has who he was gutted and put back into the world rebuilt. But the part of RoboCop that is Alex Murphy was never going to be buried.

Terminator Genisys

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I am a huge fan of the first two Terminator movies, I’m not as fond of the third film but I liked the fourth movie a lot. I seem to be in the minority about Terminator: Salvation, and I can understand some of the critism of the movie. I was hopeful if another Terminator film was made then we’d get another film set in the future after Judgement Day had happened. I would have liked to have seen where the battle with the machines went before the humans had them all but beaten and the machines had to send a Terminator back to kill Sarah Connor. Instead we’ve got a film which looks like it goes back to before the first Terminator film took place.

Now, obviousy I haven’t seen the film yet, but this does make me a touch nervous. After watching one of the trailers it looks like they’ve made this film in a way that will allow them to start again from when the film takes place, which looks to be mainly taking place in the 80’s, which was when the original film took place.

I would have loved for them to carry on after Salvation, as I said earlier, but this is the way the movies are going and I really hope they pull it off. I have my reservations though. The RoboCop reboot was good, but it didn’t match up to the original film and I fear this Terminator reboot will be the same. I know the director, Alan Taylor, director Thor: The Dark World and a number of episodes of Game Of Thrones (I know he has done more than that but those are what I know him best for) so I’ve got some hope that it is going to work out well but I still fear that it won’t match up to the first two movies.

I am looking forward to seeing Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor though. She’s a dead ringer for Linda Hamilton and after seeing Clarke in Game Of Thrones we know she can act.

Despite my reservations I will be in the cinema to see this movie. I hope they can pull it off.

Today’s Update

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I had more then a little frustration digging at me tonight. The day at work was a slow one and when I got home I just wanted to get some words written. It’s easier said then done though. Once I’d gotten home I had a quick shower and then ate dinner, and done the dishes it was almost eight o’clock. Eight o’clock. By that time I was more then frustrated I was annoyed. I know these things need to be done when I get home, I’d rather get them done before I sit down to write as that way they are done and out of the way.

All that said I did manage to get just over 1200 words in about fifty minutes, so I shouldn’t complain too much.

Stepping away from writing though I just want to mention the Terminator: Genysis trailer which dropped today. it looks good but raises lots of questions about timelines etc. which I hope get addressed in the movie when its out. It didn’t make me jump out of my seat like the RoboCop trailer did, but it still looked good. The trouble with this movie is that Terminator 2:Judgement Day is one of the most influential movies of my life, even to this day its one of my all time favourite movies and this new movie has to at least match how good that movie was for me to really enjoy it. That’s a very high bar and I truly hope it does it, but until I’m sat in the cinema I won’t know.

Last Week

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This last week has not been very productive. Aside from Wednesday when I went to a write-in with my local NaNo group I haven’t really done much writing. Monday, I really can’t remember what I done. Tuesday I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy (yes, again) with a friend and on Thursday I was out with my work colleagues for a meal. Last night I was really wiped out so i just chilled out and watched RoboCop (2014) again.

Once I got home this afternoon I cleaned out the hen houses (we’ve just brought five more chickens) and I’ve watched the football and worked on the timeline for The Residents. Now I’m watching The Birdcage.

So basically I’ve done pretty much sod all this last week, so this coming week I need to pull my finger out and get cracking. I’ve decided what to do for my NaNo novel for this coming November, which is the sequel to what I wrote last year; Earth, After Liberation. So this next week I’m going to be going through my edit notes and make the changes I want to last years NaNo novel. The beginning of the follow on novel has been in my head since last year. I’ve decided to do this one because it’s in a universe that I’ve already created and as I’ve got The Residents and Project Apollo quite actively on my mind I don’t want to have to start from scratch with something new.

I really need to get stuck bad into Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. I’m enjoying this one but as I’ve had a busy week I haven’t found the time to read much.

 

I’m going to end on a sad note. I, like many people, grew up watching Robin Williams entertaining the world. Whether it was Mrs. Doubtfire, Jack, Jumanji, Patch Adams or my personal favourite, The Birdcage. I’m not going to get into how he died or what may have lead to his death. To me he was a once in a generation talent who could not only add the comedy but also the drama.

I’m going to miss seeing him on our screens.

Rest In Peace Mr. Williams

Movie Monday: RoboCop

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We all know what the general synopsis of RoboCop is, but if you don’t it’s about a police office who, after he receives wounds which have left him all but dead, gets made into a cyborg and goes on to try to rediscover his humanity and who he was before he became RoboCop.

I’ve said in other posts about how anxious I was about this when it was announced they were rebooting one of my favourite movies, and that fear was firmly installed in me until I saw the first trailer. That first trailer blew my mind away, one line that RoboCop says actually made me jump out of my seat! So going into this remake my expectations had gone from all but nothing to incredibly high, and the movie pretty much fulfilled those high expectations.

Joel Kinnerman was pretty good as Alex Murphy/RoboCop. He did have a good charm and looked conflicted as he’s trying to come to terms with what has been done to him.
The new suit looks good, although I think the black and silver of the original is better, in this movie RoboCop is silver and black to start off with but the big boss man (Michael Keaton) feels black would be better, more tactical.
Speaking of Mr.Keaton, he is very good here. I’ve been a fan of Michael Keaton since I saw Batman, Batman returns and then Beetlejuice. I think he holds the viewers attention well and here he plays the role of CEO of Omnicorp very well, he looked natural.
Gary Oldman was really good in the role of Dr. Dennett Norton who creates the technology behind RoboCop and later goes on to be the main human point of contact once RoboCop is awakened.
Abbie Cornish is sweet and lovable as Clara Murphy and I think she really sells the distress of having her husband on deaths door then made into this cyborg.

The storyline is, in my opinion, better then the original movie. It addresses the strain it puts on Alex Murphy and his family as well as solving the crime of who tried to kill Murphy, as well as dealing with the corporate side to the storyline.

Something that is not in this movie from the original is a stand out villain. In the original Kurtwood Smith gives us such a nasty piece of work character, Clarence Boddicker, that is the polar opposite of Murphy/RoboCop and almost steals the show with his performance.
What I did not miss was the over the top violence, there is still a high body count but we don’t see all the blood and gore of the original. I’ve read various articles that have said that Paul Verhoeven  wanted to make a comment about American cinema but I’m glad it wasn’t brought into the remake

The satire is in the remake as it was in the original, mainly from Samuel L. Jackson’s Pat Novak who hosts a current events show and isn’t afraid to show who he’s rooting for. It looked like Jackson had a lot of fun with this character.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie and I’d like to see where it goes if a sequel is made. Is it better then the original? That’s not a fair question I don’t think as the original was a great representation of its time and I think this remake stays loyal to that. I will just add that if Hollywood continues on this course of remaking these iconic movies then this is an excellent example of how it should be done. With RoboCop they haven’t tried to copy the film scene for scene, they’ve made a movie that  is respectful of the original whilst making this movie its creature.

 

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Movie Monday: High Expectations

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This week we see the release of the RoboCop reboot, which I am really looking forward to. I didn’t always feel like this. When I first heard that Hollywood was rebooting one of my favourites movies I felt like going home, crawling under my bed and hiding from the pain that was coming. Then I heard Michael Fassbender might be playing Alex Murphy/Robocop which gave me a little bit of hope, then he dropped out and some guy (Joel Kinnaman) I had never heard of was cast. This time I was at home but I resisted the temptation to crawl under my bed. I told myself that this film had Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman and Michael Keaton (three of my favourite actors) in it and that had to count for a lot. Jackie Earl Haley is in it too and he’s pretty awesome, and Abbie Cornish is in the movie as well and she’s entertained me when  I’ve seen her on screen.

So basically my despair at the thought of one of my favourite movies being destroyed was deeply ingrained into my soul……. But then I saw the first trailer……………..

 

It took all the despair away in one foul swoop. As that first trailer progressed I got more and more excited and then came the moment in the trailer that *literally made me jump out of my seat. One line did this….

“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”

The trailers I’ve seen since then have done their job and got me more and more excited for this movie. The action and effects look good, Kinnaman seems to have a bit of charm about him and the suit looks pretty cool.

 

I’m planning on seeing it next week….I hope my expectations are met because they are very high.

 

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*Lots of people say this word and misuse it, here I am not doing that. I did jump out of the chair I was sitting on during my lunch break at work.

Shifting Expectations

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If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you may have seen that I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday after watching the trailer for the RoboCop remake which is due to hit our screens next year. I did write a blog post about this but I’m not sure if it came across just how much of a meltdown I did have yesterday. In case you missed it here’s a link to it on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INmtQXUXez8

 

Now I had a lot of reservations about this remake, mainly because I love love love the original. RoboCop and RoboCop 2 were movies that were part of my childhood (yes I was watching incredibly violent films when I was young, but boys will be boys and it hasn’t made me a psychopath or anything) and both of which had a massive effect on me. I love the whole idea of robots and Cyborgs and I used to argue with a friend who would win a fight between RoboCop and the terminator (that was before I’d seen The Terminator or Terminator 2).

 

I am going to discard the third RoboCop film a little because I have only recently seen it. I knew it did not have Peter Weller in it so I had no desire to see it. The first two movies though are iconic to me, I didn’t take away the violence from them, I took the integrity of Alex Murphy from them. How despite everything his will and who he was came through time and time again. They also taught me that the world was generally a corrupt place and those in power do anything they can to stay there.

RoboCop was not someone who compromised, if you were a criminal you deserved to be punished. Kind of like Judge Dredd in that respect. When I heard that they were remaking this movie that I adored I was not entirely happy about it. Firstly RoboCop was a great reflection of the era it was set so I didn’t think it would translate well to today. There were rumours that Michael Fassbender was going to be playing the lead and this did perk my excitement a touch, but the next thing I knew he was not going to be in it. I did not recognise the new lead, Joel Kinnaman so I lost all interest and my expectation dropped to nothing, despite Gary Oldman, Jackie Earle Haley and Samuel L. Jackson being in the cast. I’d also heard that its going to be a PG-13.

 

Then my mate mike text me saying the first trailer is out, and it looks pretty decent. So during my lunch break I watched it on my iPhone…And I was blown away! The trailer indicates that it is going to focus on how Murphy copes with going from being human to a cyborg and it looks like he is going to still have more of his personality then the original. Visually it looks stunning and it reminded me a little of how Mega City 1 looked in Dredd.

I will also admit that I almost jumped out of my seat when I heard the line “Dead or alive you’re coming with me.”

I also had not realised that Michael Keaton was in it either which is a plus for me.

There were parts of it that do cause concern for me, particularly the suit. It’s too black for a start and it doesn’t look as intimidating as the original but after being so impressed with the trailer as I have been I’m willing to ignore it for the moment.

 

This trailer has sent my expectation of this film from nothing to through the roof! I will be gutted if it doesn’t match up but I’m actually looking forward to it now.

Flash Post: RoboCop 2014 Trailer

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I have literally just seen the trailer for this and from being really anxious about this one I’m now incredibly looking forward to it. Robo looks awesome, it looks a deeper movie where murphy’s family will get more attention and it looked like they will handle murphy becoming RoboCop in more depth as well.

My expectation has skyrocketed!

(I apologise for the slap/dash way this post is written, I’ve done it on my phone during my lunch break)

Movie Monday: Reboots

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I’d like to use this weeks Movie Monday post to talk about the current trend of Rebooting movies and franchises. In the last few years we have seen An A-Team reboot, a Spider-Man one, Total Recall. We saw Judge Dredd come back to our screens in Dredd. We also have Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies. I’ve also heard a rumour that there will be a Starship Troopers  and RoboCop reboot too.

Most of the time these movies are very uninspiring. I found the Spider-Man reboot just that, although Andrew Garfield was very good as Peter Parker and the rest of the cast was mostly very good. The storyline and the fact that the original Spider-Man films are still quite fresh in our memories.

The A-Team movie was okay at best Liam Neeson was as always very solid. Quinton Jackson as B.A. was good and so was Sharlto Copley as Murdock. I felt Bradley Cooper did not do justice to the character of Face. I remember Face to be very Suave when he was played by Dick Benedict in the TV series and Cooper made him to much of a loud mouth. I like Bradly Cooper but he didn’t pull this one-off.

Total Recall I’m still on the fence with. When I watched it I was half asleep so I’d like to give it another watch before deciding once and for all.

Out of the movies that I have mentioned the only remakes that has impressed me was Dredd and the Batman trilogy. Dredd was a lot more raw then the original version and Christophe Nolan gave Batman a whole new edge which worked really well.

I am not anti-reboots, but they have to be good. They have to do something more than just make money. Rebooting Spider-Man so soon after the first three movies were made was not needed really. People know the origin story, so why do it again?

I would love to see Hollywood taking a few chances and make some original movies like Moon by Duncan Jones. Or Christopher Nolan’s Inception. District 9 was an amazing movie as well. If you’re going to do a reboot it needs to be something different to what we have seen, not the same old story time and time again.

Movie Monday

Peter Germany Movies, Sci-Fi, Video Games, Zombies , , , , , , , , ,

I love movies, I mean I absoluetly love movies and if you have been reading my blog for a while you’ll have noticed that I talk about movies quite often so (hopefully) each Monday I’ll be putting up  a post about the movies that I really want to see or am about to watch, or have just watched.

Resident Evil:Retribution

 

I saw this one when it came out and have been thinking about it here and there.  It’s not bad, but it’s not anywhere near as good the previous four films.  It left me feeling a little unsatisfied if I’m honest.  Nothing was tidied up from the last film, no answers were given to questions from the last film, or how Jill Valentine ended up where she was.  The best part of the film was the ending because it set up the next film.  Although it did create a lot of questions but hopefully the producers will answer them in the next film.

 

Prometheus

 

I saw this one when it came out and found that I was annoyed at how it’s meant to be an Alien prequel, but they had better technology.  If there was no Alien element to it then it would not have made any difference to the movie.  It’s the simple thing of technology though.  In this film the technology the crew have is far superior to that of the original film, but I’ll see how it plays out when I watch it sometime this week.

 

And has anyone seen the images of the new Robocop? is it my imagination that it looks like a cheap knock off of Iron Man? I’m thinking that it might have been an idea for the producers to have kept it under wraps for a while because a still picture never shows how it will look in a movie.

 

Top three movies of the year so far:

  1. The Avengers (Avengers Assemble)
  2. The Hunger Games
  3. The Dark Knight Rises