"Robocop" (2014) REVIEW

I'll admit it. Like practically everyone else who went to see this movie, I too had low expectations for it. The movie did let me down, though, but not the way I expected.

In the near future (2028), the government has military drones all over the world, maintaining peace in all the countries in the world except the U.S.A. You see, the American government doesn't want those drones on their streets. Why? Because the robots are robots, they have no emotions or independent thoughts. If one of them shot a kid, they wouldn't feel anything different from shooting a criminal. So, the head of Omnicorp (Micheal Keaton), gives in to corporate greed to make something people can rally behind, something with character and and independent thoughts, something that has the strength of a machine and the will of a man. They're going to put a man in a machine.

The movie was great from the beginning, from Samuel L. Jackson's performance as a media spokesman trying to get the public to approve of military drones to Joel Kinnaman kicking butt as Robocop. That is, until we get to the last 30 minutes of the movie. The story is still good, but the movie really changed pace at that point from an easy, slow pace to an extremely rushed pace. The movie could have easily been at least 45 minutes longer.

Another problem I want to point out, which kind of goes with the pacing issue, is that the movie had very little Robocop action in it. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the message they delivered in the movie and having greed the antagonist of the film instead of a drug lord, but I felt the writers were too quick to end the story right when we got started on Robocop action.

Overall, I like the movie, but the rushed pacing in the end ruined it for me. I did enjoy some references and one-liners from the original 1987 flick, but I was upset that they took out some golden moments (The gun flip and the rape prevention scene are the first that come to mind). However, even though this reboot is not as good as the original, it's still a pretty good movie. I'd buy it for a dollar.

3.5/5 Stars

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Kevin Lau

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