Robocop is a name that I’ve been familiar with for a long time, but I had never seen him in action. When I heard that he would be having a new film; I was largely indifferent. I was sure that it would be fun, but I figured that it could be years until I actually saw it. Instead, I ended up seeing it at the theater. It was essentially as good as I thought it would be, which can be seen as a good or a bad thing.

Alex is an ordinary cop and he’s one of the few policeman left who has not turned to the dark side. He’s on the case as per usual when an explosion basically takes him down for the count. To save his life, a medical group quickly puts him inside of a suit that will enable him to live. The main drawback being that the government (Ok, not really the government, but his handlers) can take direct control of him whenever they please. Alex doesn’t like this and he needs to make sure that nobody can stop him from enforcing the law. He’s going to have to use all of his abilities to pull this off!

Alex is a pretty good main character and he’s a hero through and through. Well, he does go all out in the ending which may make his hero status a little murky, but before that he was known as a heroic cop. He got the job done and villains could not mess with him. After he becomes Robocop, he’s still a good character, but he doesn’t really get his will back until the end. I can sympathize with how he doesn’t want anyone to see him in his new form. It’s pretty tough to look at and it could traumatize his kid. Alex was easily the best character in the film, but from here on…I shall call him Robocop!

I’ll admit that the beginning had me a little worried. It starts off in a small village with robots and humans working together in harmony. I didn’t mind the harmony part, but deserts, underwater, and places without a lot of buildings don’t make for great scenery. Luckily, we quickly move to the big city and the scene wasn’t that bad. I’m not sure what the point of the suicide bombers was, but I suppose that they give us a sense of dread and show how against drones America is. Which brings us to another point of the film….

America is actually pretty smart this time around. We decided that we didn’t want a bunch of droids infiltrating America so we put a stop to it. Patrick has a TV show where he tries to convince people to allow droids in America, but it’s tough to stop an American when it comes to politics. The show was one of the better subplots because I always like to see TV scenes. Patrick is a decent character, but his final line is unnecessary. Unfortunately, you know that it’s coming. You can seriously guess what he’s about to say before he even says it thanks to his actor. As with Wolverine, it’s somehow become a part of his character. Until then, Patrick kept his cool at least.

Meanwhile, I actually didn’t mind Alex’s kid that much. Usually I don’t really care the kids in a movie because they can be a little annoying or just add filler to the story. I could sympathize with this kid a lot more because he was actually supportive of Alex’s predicament. He taped all of the sport games and waited to watch them until Alex came home. Unfortunately, Alex wasn’t able to watch it with him and that’s where things got sad for David. (The son) He also has a tough time going to school because of Alex’s image being ruined on public TV. (Alex was forced to ignore him as well since he was hijacked)

Clara is a decent character and she makes the tough call to have Robocop be created since Alex wasn’t in a position to personally agree. The decision may not have been universally appreciated, but she did have to make a choice and the scientists probably would have went along with the process anyway. It’s good that Clara made things hard on the villains for a while, but she does end up underestimating them at the end.

Rick is one of the big antagonists and I can’t say that he’s a likable character. He’s basically there for us to dislike him and he’s also pretty weak. Robocop would have taken him out instantly if not for all of the protocols. Rick talks tough, but he’s one of the many characters who cannot back it up with action.

Dennett is the main scientist and it’s hard to root for him as well. He helps the villains for a while and he definitely doesn’t make it easy for Robocop. At the end he realizes that things may have gone too far, but things went too far a long time ago! Either way I would have been surprised if I had liked the scientist, they usually aren’t my favorite characters.

Raymond is the mastermind behind the whole operation and his power is only matched by his terrible planning skills. He does make sure to have a lot of backups for his plan, but it was doomed to fail. I’m sure that the American citizens were going to realize that something was up. Raymond is the type of guy who will take a hostage, but he won’t fight Robocop one on one. If not for Robocop’s limitations, the final battle would have been a lot quicker. Raymond just wasn’t an interesting villain.

Jack is Robocop’s partner and he’s a pretty tough guy. He may not have looked very good during the detective work at the beginning, but his reflexes were just a little off. He still had his gun at the ready and he did pretty good. Considering how corrupt the police is, it’s good to know that we’ve got another cop on the side of the law. Once Robocop is fully operational, Jack doesn’t really get to appear much. He’s going to need an upgrade for the sequel!

The soundtrack wasn’t really memorable. It may appear that this is the case a lot recently, but it’s not just in recent films. Many films suffer from having a very unmemorable or just downright generic set of themes. This one may not have been very generic, but I just can’t recall any of the themes. This was definitely no Man of Steel or Avengers in that regard!

The battle scenes were fun when they happened, but we didn’t get enough of them. Robocop is great with a gun and they could have stylized the fights like the Terminator films. The best fight scene is probably when Robocop has a test battle against the droids and the trainer. We get some action in the climax, but the robots were very big so it wasn’t a real fight scene. Robocop would shoot them and keep on shooting them until they were down for the count. We need another humanoid in order to make this a fair fight. I’m confident that a sequel would have more fighting.

Overall, this was a good movie. I wouldn’t say that it was great, but it was a decent starting point. I would have liked some more action and I think that Robocop should have snapped away from the mind control a little sooner, but those aren’t huge errors. I would definitely be interested in watching a sequel and the franchise has a lot of potential in it. I recommend this film if you enjoyed the original Iron Man or if you like a good robot story. It’s light on action so you’ll want to be watching it for the emotional values…maybe. Just watch it if you want to see what life could be like in the future with droids all over the place.

Overall 6/10

I have to say that I never realized how many horror posters this film got. I definitely would have been disappointed if I went in after just viewing those, but I wasn’t expecting a horror movie when I went in. I was expecting a film with Johnny Depp where he actually looked bearable. That can’t be right…can it? My brother got some advance tickets so I got to see the film before it officially came out and things got intense. Pizza in one hand and a water bottle in the other, I wasn’t leaving until I’d seen the entire film!

The plot involves a man named Will Castor and he’s pretty smart. He is working on building a sentient A.I. that has a will of its own and is capable of making decisions. Things are going pretty well for a while, but then the building where he is in gets infiltrated by a terrorist organization that is against technology. They shoot him and murder some of his associated as they effectively shut down the program. Will now has the only computer that works and he is doomed to die. His only chance is to become the A.I., but will he still be human? Humanity must decide whether they can trust Will or not and the terrorists aren’t going to stop until he’s taken down. Man vs Machines…the war to end all wars has begun. Let’s just hope that we fare better against Will than we did against Skynet!

There actually aren’t a whole bunch of characters in this one. There are only a few important ones that need to be mentioned and who better to start off with than Will? As you can tell from the trailers, Will becomes one with the A.I. and now he has the power! The Government quickly starts to fear him and the terrorists are unnerved. This doesn’t really deter Will and he does a lot of great things with his new abilities. He can help people heal from disease and give them superhuman abilities as well. That’s not a bad deal and he can also keep people safe.

We don’t get to see it much, but with his internet abilities, Will has a lot of control over the planet. Think about what you could do if you completely controlled the internet. It would be pretty incredible. Unfortunately, that’s not something that we really get to see since it’s more about how Will is helping the environment and trying to convince people that he’s an okay guy. Not all of his moves are the right ones, but I’ll get into that later on in the review.

Evelyn is Will’s partner through the film and she tries her hardest to make sure that Will makes it into his A.I. form in decent shape. She was pretty good during the beginning of the film, but I gradually began to dislike her as the film went on. I’ve never liked it when the characters start to distrust the main character because he’s grown too powerful. I expected her to be a lot more understanding towards the end and it just didn’t happen.

At least Evelyn doesn’t fall as far down as Max. Max is basically Will’s best friend, but the instant that Will transcends the limits of the physical body; Max turns against him. He fears what he does not fully understand and he also doesn’t want to understand. Max gets kidnapped by the terrorists and things continue to get worse and worse for him.

Naturally, you’ll understand why I don’t like Joseph. As with Evelyn, he turns against Will pretty quickly. Even before he turned to the “dark” side I didn’t care for him. He was a little too chummy with the FBI and if you’ve watched any film in the last 30 years…you never trust the FBI. They are usually just around to be infiltrated or blown apart by the CIA. Given how big his actor was, I thought that Joseph would get a larger role. Ah well, he didn’t really add much to the plot.

Donald was one of the more likable characters. Why? He’s open about being untrustworthy and he’s basically bad to the bone. He believes in using people to take the fall for him and he doesn’t matter how he solves a case…just as long as he solves it. Donald doesn’t appear for very long, but he was a nice change of pace from the other characters.

Bree is the final character that I should mention. She’s just one of the terrorists, but she seems to be the main one or at least the most important member. She gets Max to exit the bar and get mugged and she’s also the one who continues to talk tough for the duration of the film. I can’t say that she’s a likable villain and I can’t take her seriously as a villain, but at least she had a gun. That automatically made her more prepared than the rest of the terrorists.

We have a pretty colorful cast, but they just weren’t that enjoyable. Will did some shady things, but for the most part he was helping humanity. I can see why they were upset when his cybernetics became capable of possessing people, but why couldn’t Evelyn just tell him that she didn’t approve? Throughout the whole film, she never walks up to Will and directly tells him to stop. It’s a little tough on the viewer because you almost feel bad for Will. He really does his best to make Evelyn feel comfortable in this tough future, but she doesn’t make things easy on him.

Will may have made a few mistakes, but he also did a lot of good through his new knowledge. He could have revolutionized medical treatment and stopped Global hunger. He would have essentially solves all of Earth’s big problems if humanity had let him. Power corrupts, but Will seemed to be strong willed enough to stop that from happening to him. Sure, Will got rich very quickly, but he did it by using advanced logic to place stock, bets, and trades. He didn’t seem to do anything illegal.

As such, it’s hard to sympathize with the other characters. If Will had won, then it would have been a victory for many. An innocent man ends up dying because of the terrorists, but the government doesn’t seem to care and more of Will’s “friends” take it in stride since it’s for the greater good. I’ve never liked traitors like that and these characters were no exception.

The soundtrack for the film is decent. I liked the theme that played during the end credits, but I can’t say that I really remember any of the other tunes. Well, having one memorable tune definitely beats having none and that final piece helped to win back the horror element that we had been waiting for.

The film isn’t very violent, but we do get a few intense scenes. One guy is beaten up very badly and then Will has to use his super science to save him. That scene can be a little disturbing visually since his injuries look so gruesome. We get a few people beat up here and there, but nothing gets any worse than the medical scene. It would have been more of a problem if we got too many scenes like that, but there are only a handful of scenes with violence and the rest is back to the norm. We don’t really get much romance in this film although I’m pretty sure that I remember an unnecessary flashback. It could have been cut out.

Overall, this was an all right film. It’s basically what if story with a lot of drama. The film could have went many different ways with this plot and they went for an emotional route. I believe that the film would have done better if it had gone for horror or action, but I suppose that a film can’t do that every time. It’s not a bad film and you should enjoy it if you like the concept, but there’s also no amazing reason to see it. If you want another take on a what if future involving robots, then it may be time to check out an edited Terminator film.

Overall 5/10