I was able to watch Robocop yesterday and many thoughts came to my mind while I was watching it. Was it necessary to do a remake of this franchise that already had 3 movies, cartoon animated series and live action series?

Weirdly, my answer is yes.

Why? The first Paul Verhoeven´s movie, which was released the year I was born (1987) depicted the future and its problems in a way that, with the same character, could be rebuilt from our actual perspective. National security, drones, aggressive marketing campaigns, media and their power, the police department and their new technologies... The new issues, society and the Detroit depicted in this film worked for me and caught my attention. I liked the beginning of the movie pretty much.

I also liked the cientific perspective of the movie, trying to make it more realistic and descriptive than in the previous flick, also that some of the characters have their good and dark side at the same time (like Gary Oldman). I also liked Michael Keaton´s performance. The actor playing Robocop... not that much.

The problems with this movie, for me, start later and, even though I think the script is solid, many situations made me lost my interest on what was going on, plus the action scenes didn´t charm me at all. Yes, this one is a PG-13 movie and the 1987 was full of gore and incredible shootouts but yet, I preferred the action in District 9 or I, robot, for putting two examples.

My rating for this movie is a 5.75/10 , I guess it could perfectly work as an expensive first episode of a new franchise for the kids but maybe for the ones who grew up with the old ones, this is just an entertaining film with many references to the original but trying to do something original with the old material, and that part for me worked. And, as usual, so many digital effects made me lose the realism of the movie (I prefer old Robocop better than this one).

As an extra I would like to put a top 5 list of remakes worth watching because of their inventive, better story, better cinematography etc. and 5 worthless remakes that just don´t bring anything new and weren´t just unnecessary.

5 WORTHY REMAKES:

-The Thing, by John Carpenter.

-Scarface, by Brian de Palma

-The Fly, by David Cronenberg

-The Magnificent Seven, by John Sturges

-12 Monkeys, by Terry Gilliam

 

5 WORTHLESS REMAKES:

-Old Boy, by Spike Lee

-Evil Dead, by Fede Álvarez

-The Day the Earth Stood Still, by Scott Derrickson

-Psycho, by Gus Van Sant

-The Ladykillers, by Coen Brothers

 

By the way, next week two more double-feature screenings for Llagas and Sinnside!