A tale of two RoboCops

No I don't mean Alex Murphy and John T. Cable.

Just by making that reference I think it can be said I'm a big fan of the franchise. I've seen the three original movies, two of the TV series, and grew up on the cartoon.

And now we have a new one, so how does an old fan like me feel about it?

Well I liked it. Just as you can like both Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger's Joker, it is possible to like both.

*Spoilers ahead*

The main underlying theme of RoboCop is humanity, what makes us human. Verhoeven and Padilha's RoboCops are essentially two approaches on the same topic. 1987 RoboCop is about a man trying to reclaim his humanity, where as 2014 RoboCop is about a man trying to maintain his humanity.

In a sense when people say "there is only one RoboCop" they're right. While both movies take different paths, the end destination is the same. Alex Murphy is still a man, RoboCop might have a mechanical body, but the man is still there.

Alex Murphy and Alex Murphy

Probably the most obvious difference between Alex Murphy (1987) and Alex Murphy (2014) is that the former is dead and the latter seriously injured. Whereas Murphy (1987) was brought back from the dead, Murphy (2014) was more like Darth Vader in that the mechanical body served as a mobile life-support system.

In RoboCop (1987) for a good portion of the film Murphy is a brain in a case and nothing more than an organic CPU. When he's revived, he isn't reffered to by name, he's called "RoboCop" or rather Crime Prevention Unit 001, as his full designation. As the movie goes on more and more of Murphy's memory and personality emerge. By the end once he has taken his helmet off and the audience sees his face again, his movement has become much more fluid coupled with his facial expressions, he looks less a hulking robot and more a man in an armor suit. At the film's conclusion the OCP CEO asks him "What's your name?" to which Murphy replies simply with "Murphy". By the end of RoboCop 2, his restoration seems complete when he remarks to Lewis "Patience Lewis, we're only human."

Where as in RoboCop (2014) Murphy never has his memory blanked and people still reffed to him by name. His face was never really concealed from the audience. Yes he has the visor but when he was revived as RoboCop, the audience saw Murphy's face, not the iconic red visor. In 1987 Murphy's family had moved on, in contrast in 2014 Murphy's family is still there and they are still trying to hang on to each other, he's trying to keep his family while they're tying to keep their husband and father. In the end he has his true, long awaited reunion with his family.

The Execution

In the execution, Padilha stayed respectful to the source material unlike say, Paul W.S. Anderson with Resident Evil or Uwe Boll in your pick of any of his video game based movies.

From the start there was a lot to be said about Murphy's new black armor. People generally saying "that's not RoboCop" and in a sense they were right. I'm not sure if it was an intentional stroke of script writing genius or a just a fluke, but when Murphy is revived in the re-imagining of the blue-silver armor he asks "What kind of suit is this...?" to which his physician Dr. Norton replies "It's not a suit, it's... you."

One will also notice that when Omni starts to screw directly with Murphy's brain, he is the black armor. In a sense the black armor is not him, it's not Murphy. When he starts acting like a robot because his brain chemistry has been screwed with, to the point where he ignores his wife, child and partner, he's is in the black suit. As with the original, his personalty starts to re-emerge when he starts encountering elements of his own (here attempted) murder. In this case his first act of hanging on to his humanity is to investigate his own attempted murder. At the end when he has over come everything Omni did to try to make him into a robot, and he finally has his reunion with his family, he is back in the blue-silver armor. Another notable thing between the two bodies, is that the black armor bears the logo of OmniCorp while the blue-silver armor only has his badge engraved on.

And of course, he still retained the heavy thumping footsteps, which is about as iconic to RoboCop as Darth Vader's mechanical breathing.

Omni did what they could to suppress Alex Murphy and ultimately failed, the man prevailed.

I also enjoyed the numerous references to the original. There was a subversion of the "I'll buy THAT for a dollar!" tag line. This time around Alex retains an organic hand, a nod towards Bob Morton ordering the surgeons to remove Murphy's left arm in 1987. There were other smaller ones I can't remember off the top of my head without watching it again, but they're there.  

But...

The 2014 isn't exactly perfect. The concept was sound but there were a few things in the execution that could have been better. While a lot of attention was paid to Murphy and Norton, there was less to Murphy's wife and his partner Jack Lewis wasn't any better off.

I can see they wanted to place more emphasis on Murphy's humanity, what they should have done was spend another 30 min to flesh out his relations with his partner before and after becoming a cyborg. For instance when they meet again after Murphy's procedure, they exchange a few words and a joke, no fistbump or secret handshake between the two.

Also 2014 lacks a charismatic villain. While Sellars is obviously the stand in for both the main villain of the original, Dick Jones, and partly for Bob Morton as the initiator of the RoboCop project, a part that was done very well, who's the stand in for Clarence Boddicker? Boddicker seems to have been split of into two, hardly memorable villains, the criminal Antoine Vallon who is cahoots with at least three corrupt officers, and Rick Maddox.

Vallon was almost just a cardboard cut out, the biggest role he played was being responsible for the car bomb that crippled Murphy. His last moments were hardly memorable compared to Boddicker.

Maddox by contrast, arguably isn't even really bad. An asshole, yes, but at the end of the day he was really nothing more than a mercenary on OmniCorp's pay role, just a guy doing his job.

By contrast to both, Clarence Boddicker was a through and though bad guy, and he knew it, not only did he know it, but he loved it. Even the lettering to the billboard advertising his car, the 6000 SUX could be read as GOOD SUX if you squint your eyes a little. He was mean, vicious, violent and had a dark sense of humor, show on one instance when he blew up a member of his own gang's car because he had the audacity to buy a 6000 SUX as well. Boddicker was loud and in your face and you couldn't help but laugh along with some of his twisted humor, he was the sort of villain that the audience loved to hate. Maddox by contrast was really nothing more than, as Murphy put it "...a little asshole..."

All and all, the concept was sound, I liked what they were going for, but in the execution there was more they could have done.

Other thoughts

Both movies were clearly products of their time. Which is one of the reasons why I like the new one. It wasn't just trying to copy the 1987 movie, but instead was it's own narrative on the same themes and topics. Though this time around, I actually found this incarnation of Alex Murphy to be just a tad more likable. Yeah I said it, I liked this Murphy more. 1987 Murphy was just a straight shooting cop doing his job. Nothing wrong with that. Though 2014 Murphy, with police having a more and more negative image due to corruption and police brutality in our modern times, this Murphy refuses to let a case go involving crooked cops, "they're either dumb or dirty!" he says. He is the cop we all want today, the one who'll clean the streets AND clean house.

And being a product of it's time, I actually do like the redesigns. I like Murphy's "it's you" suit. It was sleek but still looked like the original. While it was sleeker and more lean looking, Murphy was still taller than everyone else, he still had a presence. The I liked the black armor as well, not as much as the blue-silver one, but I liked it since it reminded me of an Evangelion unit from the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series. I liked how it looked different because it wasn't him so to speak. It differentiated Murphy the man, from OmniCorp's efforts to turn the man into a product. The sleek stealthy redesign of the ED-209 was also welcome in my opinion. If ED-209 was made today it would look like that as opposed to the blocky version we saw in 1987.

Watching the fight between Murphy and the ED-209s I couldn't help but think of another cyborg, Jack "Raiden" from Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid video game franchise. Murphy's battle with the ED-209s was a little reminiscent of Raiden's battle with the very ED-209 esque Gekko cyborg anti-infantry units.

At the end of the day, it is a good movie on it's own. And yes, you can like it and the original 1987 film at the same time.