Well, the original was pretty rubbish if you approached it as a plain action movie. The plot was the standard “man survives mob attack, sets out for revenge” with the twist that he’s a police officer, and the action sequences mostly involved Robocop standing still. Admittedly, most 80s action movies were like that - the whole John Woo jumping-through-the-air business hadn’t taken off yet. Nonetheless it’s a classic film because of the tone, the humour, the… and it was visually impressive and had a great soundtrack despite costing about twenty pence to make.
But it was the tone that set it apart. The combination of self-aware spoof, satire, and a core of sincerity. It had obviously ludicrous news bulletins, and most of the villains were cartoons. But Murphy’s plight was genuinely affecting, and Paul Weller’s performance was dead serious. I think Tim Burton was going for a similar tone with his Batman movie - Michael Keaton’s low-key Batman was surrounded by freaks - but Robocop worked better on that level because Murphy was much more vulnerable. We got to see him blown to pieces, and even when he came back as Robocop he seemed broken (there was something child-like about Robocop, he was a goody-two-shoes who ate baby food).
And the film had a genuinely nervous feel, too. It had horrible ultraviolence punctuated by dark jokes. It felt as if an insane underground art film director had been given some money and minimal oversight and left to his own devices. I remember the director saying in the commentary that they got away with a lot because the hero was a policeman, and genuinely sympathetic; whatever he did to the villains was less than they had done to him. And if the villains wanted to kill each other, why not?
The other two Robocop films got the tone wrong. Robocop II was a non-stop bullet orgy freakshow with some cartoonish nods at sincerity, that felt as if a child had been asked to make something that was a bit like Robocop, but TO THE MAXXXXX!. I haven’t seen the third film.
So, really, if the reboot’s going to be any good - if it’s going to be Robocop, and not The Punisher in a Metal Suit - it has to get the tone right. The combination of satire, exaggerated but genuinely horrible ultraviolence, and sincerity. Also, it has to have ED-209. And it has to be well-written. I mean, the parallels between Batman and Robocop are huge, I would be happy if they treated it as a Batman film, e.g. classy. But with ultraviolence. It always got me that the villain was called Clarence. The new film should have a villain called Florence. Or Melody.
“Are you dense? Are you retarded or something? I’m goddamn Robocop!”
I’d change the suit, though. Paul Weller always looked as if he was pouting. That might have been a Paul Weller thing. But I wondered why the villains never shot his mouth. On a story level they had to keep some of his face, so that we can relate to the character. And perhaps he had armoured teeth. I dunno. The costume in Robocop II looked a bit camper, it was light blue. And, yes, it has to have someone being liquidifed and then splatted against a car window. That was awesome. “Help meee!”, SPLAT. Simultaneously horrible and funny. Like watching videos of women giving birth. Modern films seem bland in comparison.
