2014, A GREAT TECHNOLOGICAL AGE FOR A ROBOCOP REBOOT

RoboCop - Joel Kinnaman

In the 1987 film RoboCop, we were introduced to a new kind of police force. In it police officer Alex Murphy is mortally wounded. With Murphy’s death a door to high technology is open that changes the way in which law enforcement deals with criminals. The RoboCop prototype - or at least this was the goal of officials of the futurist, Detroit, Michigan and Omni Consumer Products (OCP). However, to create RoboCop (Peter Weller) all memories of Murphy’s previous life had to be purged. 

Before things go haywire Murphy’s former partner, Officer Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), learns the truth behind the metal hood of Robocop and against

RoboCop - Peter Weller

OCP and many in their own police department  prototype helps Murphy regain his memories and bring the OCP down for its corruption of the very laws it created, which were 1. serve the public trust; 2. protect the innocent; and 3. uphold the law; 4. the law secretly programmed into RoboCop by the scientists that created him- never kill members of the OCP. This last, proves a tough problem for Murphy.

On the heals of this film's success came two equally successful sequels, RoboCop 2 in 1990 and RoboCop 3 in 1993. Both Weller and Allen revised their starring roles.

Now jettisoning to the present where this Wednesday we will be see the reboot of the RoboCop franchised in action in a 2028 Detroit. In this new version of RoboCop Joel Kinnaman plays the title character of Alex Murphy. The group of scientists who creates the RoboCop prototype now works for Omnicorp, a multinational conglomerate. Many of Kinnaman fans will know him from the hit AMC series The Killing, which with conclude with its final season on Network later this year. 

Unlike, the pervious RoboCop films, there is a lot of heavy star power in this remake. Some of them are Gary Oldman as Dr. Dennett Norton, Michael Keaton as Raymond Sellars, and Samuel L. Jackson as Pat Novak. Without actually seeing this film, the most notable changes are that there is no Officer Anne Lewis, the Omni Consumer Products is now Omnicorp, and RoboCop wears a shiny black suit made of fiberglass, plastic, form rubber and other materials. In addition, his helmet has a red optical laser light and his motorcycle is a total science fiction invention that reminds one of something Batman rides.

What changes made to the storyline, if any, will be discover at this Wednesday’s opening. However, given its star stellar cast this RoboCop looks to be a 2014 cinemas winner.