Oh my fucking God.
In case you missed it, the trailer for the new RoboCop remake was recently unleashed on the Internet. It’s… well, it exists. I can’t believe that people actually invested time and money into creating it, but it exists. The only possible silver lining to this thing is that the PRISM server farm commits e-suicide while processing it in an effort to prevent this atrocity from attaining eternal life in the NSA vault. I don’t even know where to start with this. I guess we can begin by all viewing this trailer. Together:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INmtQXUXez8
Are you still alive? Did you make it? Did you actually watch the whole thing? Let’s take a brief moment to decompress after what we’ve just witnessed. Well, maybe a few moments.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
So let’s summarize the trailer. Like the original, this new RoboCop features a main character named Alex Murphy. In the original, he was brutally executed by a street gang, his body maimed beyond recognition by repeated point-blank gunfire. While one of his arms was salvageable, it was amputated because Bob Morton wanted FULL BODY PROSTHESIS. The only organic parts left after his transformation were his brain, spinal cord, and face. In the remake, he is blown up by a car bomb, and his arm is apparently saved, since he has a non-robotic hand. Question 1: What the fuck? Question 2: Are you fucking kidding me, here? Question 3: FUCK YOU.
Wait, that last one wasn’t a question. Oh well.
Now, I was recently informed by my friend that I use the word “fuck” quite a bit when I write these reviews on the Internet. She noted that I am crass at times in these reviews, whereas in person I don’t really talk like this. So, I will apologize if I say “fuck” too many times in this review for your taste. In my defense, I will contend that this trailer is more offensive than mere words could ever be. I mean, this trailer is more horrifying than Mein Kampf, really. At least Hitler let Leni Riefenstahl push film in bold new directions. This shit is just insane.
As an aside, my friend also said that she didn’t like the fact that I used the word “panties” and talked about various actresses’ posteriors in some of these reviews. Is the word “panties” actually frowned upon? Does it really make me sound perverted? You and I both know that I can’t contain myself, but I wonder about these things just the same.
To get back on topic: Fuck this shit. What happened to Michael Keaton, anyway? This man was the God of my childhood movie watching. Beetlejuice is the first live-action movie I can remember seeing in the theater. His crotch grab after he yells “Nice fucking model!” sent me into hysterics then, and it still does now. The following year, he appeared in Batman, which completely blew my mind when I was 5. Now, he just randomly appears in lame movies like The Other Guys and manages to completely dominate everyone else in the film. He deserves better than this. So, while I can’t really blame him for it, the part where his character says “Let’s go with black” is the definitive “Fuck you” moment of the trailer. It is the exact moment where you can sense the corporate suits behind its creation, high on cocaine, balls deep in 18 year old Estonian girls, and possessing a vague recollection of the success of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy having their little epiphanies. I can’t believe that they actually spray-painted RoboCop black. It’s just beyond what was once believed to be the realm of the possible. At least he doesn’t have flame decals, I guess.
So yeah, RoboCop is jet black for at least some portion of this movie. What’s the over/under on them ripping off the “fear” motif from Batman Begins as well? They already ripped it off in everything from Star Trek (2009) to Green Lantern, so why not? RoboCop has to face his fears of being a cyborg and learn to cope with his new life as an instrument of justice. Who writes this stuff? Who approves the script for this stuff? Why is this movie still scheduled for release? At least the Total Recall remake, as embarrassing and bloodless as it was, still felt like an actual movie. They made changes to the original, and I didn’t necessarily agree with those changes personally, but you could at least see what they were going for with it. I cannot imagine any universe where making a RoboCop movie in which RoboCop has a non-robotic hand makes any sense. It does not compute.
I cannot believe that I just referenced the Total Recall remake as a positive example. I also can’t believe that I have to explain this, but the movie and the character are named “RoboCop”. See, “Cop” is a word used to describe a police officer. “Robo” is a prefix that comes from the word “robot”, or “robotic”. So the name “RoboCop” is really short for “Robotic Cop”. Try to keep up, Hollywood. You can do another line if you need to. Now, answer me this question: Setting aside the fact that RoboCop is a cyborg and not a robot, why would a robotic cop need his human right hand? Why is it there? Explain this to me.
There’s no explanation. It’s completely retarded. I haven’t even got to the rest of this garbage, like the part where Murphy as RoboCop is confronted by his wife and then visits his son. In the original, his wife and son were long gone, leading to that powerful scene in his old house where he remembers who he is. Why did his wife and son leave? Because he was listed as dead. Why was he listed that way? BECAUSE HE WAS FUCKING DEAD. You see, Hollywood, in the original, the point was that for all intents and purposes Murphy died and was turned into RoboCop. He didn’t know who he used to be. The part in the trailer where RoboCop angrily asks, “What the hell did you do to me?” would have never happened. His wife would not be informed about his change. He was dead to the world, and the rest of the movie was about him reclaiming his humanity. How do you fuck this up? How do you miss the point so epically?
Really, if they wanted to make a new RoboCop movie, why didn’t they just make an adaptation of Frank Miller’s RoboCop 2? I know The Spirit bombed, and Frank Miller is… well, Frank Miller, but there was a comic adaptation of that original script some years ago and it was pretty awesome. I’m sure Frank Miller’s name would help it sell tickets. I guarantee it would be better than whatever this is supposed to be. But no, we need to make a new RoboCop for a new generation! I don’t know, guys. Most of today’s teenagers think “RoboCop” is just a Kanye West song. Why bother remaking the origin story for the new generation and fucking it all up like this? I just don’t see the point here. I get that they’re trying to make money, but I don’t understand how releasing something like this is going to help them accomplish that.
Anyway, we also have Samuel L. Jackson cashing a paycheck in this. Why does he keep appearing in all these shitty movies? He’s yet another one of my childhood heroes degrading himself in various embarrassing films today. Granted, he still has great moments like Lakeview Terrace and Snakes on a Plane, but then he turns around and appears in movies like this. I just don’t know what to say. Is he supposed to be Dick Jones? He doesn’t look like a Dick. I don’t know what’s happening. Oh God please make it stop.
Now, I know what some of you are going to say: it’s ridiculous to write 1500+ words about a 2 and a half minute long trailer to a movie that doesn’t come out until next year. Maybe the movie will be good, and the trailer just makes it look dumb? I highly doubt that. We’re not dealing with Dark Shadows here, where the movie is basically impossible to create a trailer for. This is obviously a straightforward Hollywood action film with a few “artistic” touches added in. The trailer is the movie. There’s no need to wait for the movie’s release to review it; we all know the deal here. It’s just another in a long line of shitty remakes of 80’s classics. Though I do find myself wondering why they continue to assault our 80’s action and horror movies, yet leave the romantic films alone. Why have they never remade When Harry Met Sally or Pretty Woman or anything like that? Why do our movies have to be the ones to be destroyed?
It’s not fair. But then, life isn’t fair. At least the spirit of RoboCop lives on in PG-13 format in Iron Man 3, which features Miguel Ferrer (aka Bob Morton) as the Vice President and has Tony Stark utter some sanitized version of “Bitches leave” when he confronts Ben Kingsley in his mansion. Meanwhile, this new RoboCop is not shown fighting a Clarence Boddicker at any point. Instead, he fights the robots from I, Robot, and apparently the new ED-209 as well. Maybe they’re saving that bit for the actual movie. I doubt it, though.
Dick Jones once said that he had to kill Bob Morton because he made a mistake. He then noted that it was time to erase that mistake. So what’s the penalty in Hollywood for making a mistake like this? What is Hollywood’s version of Dick Jones going to do about it? The time is now, Hollywood. You need to take a stand against this. You need to use your accounting magic and just make this movie a write-off. I’m not sure our country can deal with this right now. It’s just too much.
They’re not going to stop it, though. It can’t be stopped. They even omitted the question marks from the trailer like they did with the Total Recall remake. In that trailer, they asked, “Is it real Is it recall” with no punctuation. Now, they ask, “Who is in control Man or Machine”. It’s subliminal messaging, you see. There are no questions. There will be no questions. You will accept the films that you are given. Dead or alive, you’re watching this shit!
Whatever. I’m just going to go watch Dredd for like the 12th time. Now that is a melon farming movie!