RoboCop

Somewhere half-way. I don’t glorify Verhoeven’s classic, so I went into Padilha’s remake without prejudice, and yet it was unable to win me over in any significant way. As an action flick, the action scenes in Robocop aren’t exciting, and as a satire, it’s not sharp enough, even though it has some promising hints. Overall it’s unremarkably bland. (05/04/2014)

Three years ago it was Rise of the Planet of the Apes, whilst this year Robocop surprises. And I'm surprised, given how much I love the original film, that my only reservations are about Alex Murphy's awkward representative. All they had to do was either find a more sympathetic person or leave most of his face hidden in the helmet for 90% of the film. Fortunately, there is a minor paradox - most of the attention is drawn to the other "supporting" characters, led by the excellent Gary Oldman, thanks to whom one doesn't really notice Kinnaman's non-acting. The dialogue scenes are on par with the action scenes, the direction of everyone is very decent, the special effects are fine, and I quite liked the music when listening to it on its own. Fortunately, the satirical undertones have not completely disappeared, thanks mainly to the character of Samuel L. Jackson and his TV show. (02/14/2014)

Values (moral, personal, familial), likable anti-American critique (toothless, inoffensive), action with only one truly distinctive scene (the warehouse), and the strangled potential of wanting to play out at least one of the themes a little stronger. Or, it’s a perfectly Hollywood fluffy nothing that is held afloat only by Kinnaman's undeniable charisma. 3 ½. (12/09/2014)

The big surprise is the powerful screenplay which squeezes all it can from the topic and the story even has some overlap of relevance. It takes a slightly different route to the original RoboCop and that certainly does no harm. Routine action is a little restrained, only letting go during the final battle with the chickens. Keaton and Oldman steal the movie, dominating the screen in their scenes together. Alex Murphy has also gone through a certain change. Although Kinnaman doesn’t equal Weller’s qualities, he puts on a really good performance. The ace up the sleeve is director José Padilha who, despite an exhausting struggle with the studio, was able to push a lot of ideas into the project (the studio rejected nine out of every ten ideas) and details that push RoboCop upward. Next time, give it freer rein and it’ll be bombastic. (02/06/2014)

The effort for interesting psychology and the ambiguity of both the main and secondary characters is worth praise, and so, thanks God, is the absence of a dull, straightforward plot. What was popular in the 1980s would definitely not be as popular now (or only in a new guise). Surprisingly, the film fails the most in the action, which is both scarce and not great. From a 100 million action movie, I would expect a greater impact. At the same time, it is evident that they lacked skill for a grander and, above all, more detailed production, clearly visible, for example, in the similarly expensive but much better executed Minority Report. (02/15/2014)