RoboCop Review

 

Many popular movies from the 80s have been getting a reboot, such as RoboCop, which opens in theaters today.

Synopsis:
In RoboCop (PG-13), the year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years, but have been forbidden for law enforcement in America. Now OmniCorp wants to bring their controversial technology to the home front, and they see a golden opportunity to do it. When Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) – a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit – is critically injured, OmniCorp sees their chance to build a part-man, part-robot police officer. OmniCorp envisions a RoboCop in every city and even more billions for their shareholders, but they never counted on one thing: there is still a man inside the machine.

My husband was fortunate receive complimentary tickets to an advance screening, and here is his review:

Despite having doubts about a reboot of Robocop, I found it to be quite an entertaining movie. 

Opening with an intriguing scene that takes place in 2028 Iraq, we see how robots are used to keep the peace by scanning every man, woman and child to determine if they are a potential threat. When they gun down a boy holding a knife, you are faced with the question that is at the center of RoboCop - can we rely on robots to be enforcers or do we need a human soul to make the right choices?

Back in the USA, people are against having robots police them. They are "robophobic," much to the chagrin of the CEO of Omnicorp, a company that makes these types of robots. He therefore tasks his top scientist with giving the public a compromise - a man inside a machine.

They find a cop who was almost killed by a car bomb and don him in the iconic RoboCop suit.  To make him a more effective cop, his brain is tweaked a bit to make him think less like a human and become more robotic in his behavior. Of course, this does not go over well with his family. These modifications are one of the more entertaining aspects of the movie.

The action scenes, on the other hand, were a little disappointing. There was often too much happening at once on the screen.  It felt as if I was watching someone else play a role-playing game on a giant TV.

However, I did enjoy RoboCop more than I expected, but I enjoyed it more for the for the thought-provoking ethical issues than for the action scenes.