Robocrap 2014

I recently saw Robocop (2014) and felt I had to write something about it.

I’d kept my expectations rather low regarding this remake hoping that would allow the viewing to be less disappointing. 

I mean I grew up seeing Robocop with Peter Weller, and thought “Robocop’s the Man“. The TV series wasn’t altogether bad either.

So this new incarnation of it surely had some hard competition.

First of: Joel Kinnaman (fellow swede) has stepped it up. He hasn’t really stood out before, but in this film I though he did a solid job. And I think he’s been doing some work with a voice coach to. Sounded less Swedish than in other films. He portraits Alex Murphy very good, with a lot of humanity and emotion, something that Peter Weller didn’t really get a chance to do, probably due to editing. Even if the element was obvious in the original film this movie felt more within (if only by a fraction) Alex Muphy.

Having said that however we come to my second point:

What the heck happened to the dystopic future? In my book, Robocop works so well because Verhoeven pushed so hard on the crappy future.

The police are corrupt and on strike, the populace is either doing drugs or making the drugs. No one has a brighter tomorrow ahead of them. And like a Metal Messias Robocop comes and saves the day.

This is totally absent in the remake, if anything they almost try to portrait the future (or is it almost present) as a brighter one.This involuntarily makes the Need and use of Robocop into something more like a toy. A gimmick perhaps. And the suit(or armour if you will) certainly makes him look like a toy. It looks like Batman and Daft Punk had a love child and conceived it in K.I.T.T. (for you ignorants that’s the K.A.R.R. from Knight Rider)(And those of you that got that joke- Well done you are a Nerd).

So this movie went from being a strong and poignant critique on society and humans to being a movie about greed and robots and guns and…

Yes it is in there but its tucked away so well between explosions and gunfights its rather hard to notice, but the main issue here is family and love and what it is to human. Also a little bit about ethics and greedy corporations. Just like in the original, it however surpasses this film in getting the massage to the viewer. In my opinion. 

This movie sadly just became one of the other films that are just about making money. The one original idea I found worth mentioning about the remake is that they replaced the character Lewis, played by Nancy Allen, with a man also called Lewis played by Michael K. Williams. And I mention this because It’s a bad idea. Lewis in the original was hard, tough, and showed you that a woman could kick ass too. Now the character is just the stereotypic black co star who’s only contribution to the story is being shot. Basically that role is none essential. But the original Lewis was an integral part of Robocop.

We also see Gary Oldman, Samuel Jackson and Michael Keaton in this film. They are very good actors and do what they are paid to do. But even they cant revive this D.O.A., it really needed Euthanasia or a Script-transfusion.

 

The Darkest Hour indeed

The Darkest Hour popped up as a trailer on one of my DVD’s and I thought “That might be something I’d enjoy seeing”.

So I watched it.

It is in fact better than the rating it receives on IMDB. it is an pretty good Science Fiction movie, borrowing themes from all the great SCI/FI films. You can see parallels to a lot of great film in it. It however “borrows” with dignity, it achieves it’s own right or value.

Synopsis:

A bunch of young people come together in the face of disaster when Moscow (and eventually the rest of the world) falls subject to a massive Alien invasion. Invisible beings that disintegrates humans upon contact arrive en mass in search for precious metals which are found in abundance on earth. These aliens destroy anything electrical or rather eats up all the electricity.

We follow these youngsters as they navigate the city in search of rescue, learning more and more about their foe along the way. 

Eventually reaching the pseudo-ending we are familiar with from films like 28 days later or anyone of George A. Romero’s zombie apocalyptic films.  

Let me begin with pointing out that this is an Science fiction movie, so those of you who cant use your imagination needn’t even try. And just because it is a fairly new film with young people doesn’t mean it is filled with half naked girls like most of the other films are. We get some scenes which have people showing some skin, but for the most part the focus lies on telling the story. Cred to the filmmaker there.

The CGI/effects are nicely done and look plausible. A lot of buildings being imploded and humans disintegrated. And the aliens are pretty well done. You don’t get to see them a whole lot  which is good. I’m a firm believer of “The less you see the more frightened you will be”. 

The story also is mostly plausible and drives the story forward to it’s non ending. There are certainly lots of room for improvement. But being rated as a SCI/FI action movie we can let a lot of things slide.

Except for ONE crucial thing.

The screenwriter has obviously no understanding of how a Faraday cage works. They find a radio inside a birdcage crudely constructed as a Faraday cage. It’s antenna routed outside the cage. They then proceed to bring this radio inside a huge room build as a Faraday cage, which shields our “heroes” from the Aliens vision, not routing it’s antenna outside. And behold they get a signal and listens to a message pivotal to the story.

Lets break it down a bit. A Faraday Cage blocks external static and non-static electric fields. “Faraday cages cannot block static or slowly varying magnetic fields, such as the Earth’s magnetic field (a compass will still work inside). To a large degree, though, they shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation.”

What this mean is that if they were able to get a radio signal inside due to the size of the holes in the “mesh” surrounding the room, surely the electromagnetic fields from their bodies should slip out. For doubters look here where we can see that Radio waves are a lot longer than IR waves which most of our body’s radiation consists of. Hence, if Radio gets in, then the significantly smaller waves from their bodies gets out. Effectively punching a hole in this plot. Boy I just love to do this…

Another smaller “plot-hole” is that they use light bulbs for warning devices against the aliens. bulbs light up when aliens are near. So they throw a lot of them around. And I don’t know if anyone of you ever tried throwing light bulbs on concrete or stone. But they tend to break, which they in fact visibly do in the film (sloppy digital editing?). And when they break they don’t usually work so well seing that the vacuum is no more. But they do in the film. Every single one of them. Impressive throwing. 

 

Aside from that, it was an entertaining film, a lot better than I had hoped. And Emile Hirsch is contrary to his looks a rather good actor.

We also see newly appointed Robocop, Joel Kinnaman, in one of the roles as a egotistical whining gunslinging dumbass.

I give this film 6 out of 10, It gets this high grade mostly due to the look and theme of the film (love a good apocalyptic story) and because a lot of the main characters die (even a few surprising ones). It would be higher if the ending was more definite and if the filmmakers had paid attention during physics class in high school. 

Not 2 cool for school.

 

 

Remake or ReBreak

Remakes of films is nothing new, but haven’t we seen a looser grasp on what constitutes as a good idea lately from Hollywood?

Certain films are and shall always be untouchable. For instance:

• The Godfather
• 2001 – A Space Odyssey
• Star Wars IV-V-VI
• Blade Runner
• The Abyss
• It’s A Wonderful Life
• Babe

The list can go on and on. However somehow people still get a chance to remake films left to right. Sometimes the only added thing to a film, a part from added technical benefits, are more boobies.

For instance a quick prayer to the almighty Google can wield the following results in films that are being remade, and in some cases have been remade:

Ben Hur
Carrie
The Crow
Das Experiment
Dirty Dancing
Excalibur
Fantastic 4 Reborn
Frankenstein
Godzilla
Jumanji
The Jungle Book
Mortal Kombat
Oldboy
Poltergeist
RoboCop
Scarface
Short Circuit
A Star Is Born
Suspiria
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Tell No One
The Thin Man
Timecrimes
Tomb Raider
The Toxic Avenger
The Twilight Zone
The Warriors

I’ll be the first to admit that some of these I want to see, perhaps only to discard them, and some of these I want to travel abroad and visit the person who signed off on the project and perform the fish slapping dance on him/her.

Ben Hur

Why, why why, would this be a good idea? There has already been an Animated version and a TV series. Neither of which sucked profoundly, but neither really managed to improve the story either.

Carrie

This I have seen and I must conclude that the original is vastly superior. I expected the remake to be filled with gore and blood and pointless boobies (it is after all a scary movie from hollywood). However all of these things had been omitted. Sure Chloë Grace Moretz is more “pretty” than Sissy Spacek, and I can see how a director would assume that she is more appealing to a younger audience. But the fact remains, Nothing new was added other than boring CGI and… well nothing. And that is pretty much what I felt after seeing it. Nothing.

The Crow

I didn’t like the original, it was OK but in my mind it fell into the endless pit of EMO garbage. Yet I must say that a remake of this would not only be an insult to the legacy of Brandon Lee, but also to the scattered few who actually liked this film. (I will probably be mail bombed by 11 people now but that’s on me)

Dirty Dancing

Do we really need another version of this? What could be added that would give this project merit? Boobies? I for one say Ney. The original was good, Great if you are a woman. I was hoping the utter failure of the sequel would be enough. “Oh here’s an idea, lets make a remake of Dirty Dancing but in this version we’ll put the plot in an underground Rave community, that will give us ample opportunity to depict drugs and boobies”…

Fantastic 4 Reborn

Fantastic 4 – Stillborn. The first 2 movies showed the world that it was cool to be a nerd cause you could make out with Jessica Alba. But unfortunately in the real world you cant, so it was mainly appealing to pre pubescent masturbators with as many holes in the head as the plot in the film.

Frankenstein

This could be interesting, but it could also be a “horror” film in which case it will most probably be worthless. If it is made with heart, the story is awash with sentiment and philosophical mind openers. But I, like the “monster” in this tale, fear what has become of ourself and that this film could end up next to other “great” films like Sharknado or Megashark VS Crockosaurus.

Oldboy

Why can’t Americans watch subtitled foreign movies? This movie falls in with so many other great films, as a complete and utter waste of time. Unless you are retarded and can’t read, or high and can’t stop laughing when you hear another language. Just like The Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water, The Eye, One Missed Call and Shutter. All of these films are far inferior to their originals, and I fear that Oldboy will be no exception to this rule.

Poltergeist

Hell No! In what universe would a remake of this film be considered a good idea? Perhaps the “Fucked up in the head”-Universe?

Poltergeist scared the shit out of me as a kid, and it still is a wonderful film filled with movie magic. It would probably scare the shit out of my kids (can’t wait until I can show it to them). So what if the special effects at the time were limited, I say it just made the importance of convincing acting and a solid story all the more important.

RoboCop

“A swede playing Robocop?”

Why not try a Canadian psycho in a remake of John Carpenters jolly “Someones Watching Me”? 

Picture this:

Ring ring…

“Hello?” 

“Hi I’m standing in the building across from you, and I would like to look at you while you undress. Is that OK? Then I’d like to come over and strangle you , just a little bit, not too hard, is that OK?, Pour informations francais, s’il vous plaît appuyez sur 2″

I digress…

My inner child, the same child that saw the original with Peter Weller, wishes it could be as awesome as the first one was back in the day. I remember the awe inspiring and uplifting feel I had when I had seen it. And after, playing Robocop.

I don’t however remember it being such a bloody film. Quite raw and visual.  And also quite quaint quintessentially quirky, que?

I mean it was rather camp in all its rawness, bad puns, bad actors, and really twitchy stop motion. But as a kid I loved it, as an adult I love because it is so dated and weird (all those wonderful dystopic commercials).

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the remake will be OK, but being a realist and a pessimist, it will probably end up being called, RoboCrap.

Scarface

Say Hello to my little NO!

Scarface, is Al Pacino, Al Pacino is Scarface. Also Giorgio Moroder is awesome. That’s the end of that discussion.

Short Circuit

Another of my childhood favorites. Nr Johnny 5 winked it’s way into my heart, and stayed there. An amazing film, with unexpected hidden treasures. A lot of good values and food for thought in it. And who can say no to the wonderful Ally Sheedy, even if she had a real granny-haircut in the movie. Steve Gutenberg, I can do without, but he doesn’t ruin the film.

If Disney remakes this we can be sure it is going to be a hit. For the lobotomized masses who think the rootin-tootinest way to say something is with a musical.

If anyone else decides to remake this, it will be utter crap, possibly action crap, possibly Mr. Bean with boobies crap.

Suspiria

Being a Dario Argento fan I can honestly say that remaking this Is as dumb an idea as repainting the Sistine chapel, Mauve or Beige. There is no way anyone can make this film more mysterious, more strange, more suggestive, more awesome. Someone might try to make it more “Scary” and add Boobies, but that someone, my good sir, Is a Moron.

Tell No One

“Ne le dis à personne”, is a fantastic adaptation of Harlan Cobens wonderful book. This falls in under the “Why cant Americans watch subtitles films”-category. I remember thinking “Yeah, a kick ass film, and French too” Only meaning French as in French films are really good. I liked it a lot, and have seen it several times. I doubt I will see the American version repeatedly.

Tomb Raider

Seriously??? What would be the purpose? “Let’s remake Tomb Raider and this time let’s have even tighter clothes, and bigger boobies, and…more holes in the plot?” Tomb raider as a game = OK, was quite good. As a film = You could just as well show not so dressed women and every 20 seconds cut to a explosion. I’m guessing it would probably be as effective, and popular.

I say let Tomb raider remain in is Tomb.

On a finishing note I would like to see a few films remade. Such as: “Dune” (Yes I know it was made into a TV-series, which was really good, but not as good as it could be), “Silent Running” (I love it and think it is really great, but it could be even better taking an even deeper look into the psyche of Freeman Lowell) And finally I would love it if someone tried and succeeded in a remake of “The China Syndrome” (It is fantastic and a really good film, but I think it could be made into an even more thrilling edge of your seat film. As long as Stephen Bishop can sing another song to it…

Now the clock is X Files past bedtime.