Just saw Robocop...

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jup
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Just saw Robocop...

Post by jup » Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:05 am

...and, I must say, I have mixed feelings about it.

▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀ SPOIL...NIX THAT!

I want this bit to be a warning that needs to be known in advance...

THIS MOVIE USES what I am calling THE CLOVERFIELD EFFECT!
Most, if not all the action sequences, use a shaky camera format.

Here's my question. "WHY???"

Hollywood needs to learn a lesson. And, I swear that it's one of their latest toys that they only think the audience desires.

The shaky camera needs doing, sparingly, under three situations...

1) When your audience is viewing the scene via a news footage scene. As in there is a news reporter talking into a camera to broadcast out to the world and the action picks up. This movie almost begins with this set up. Shaky camera? YES.

2) When your character(s) are filming their world via a consumer grade camera, much like a percentage of the audience can. Shaky camera? YES. (But, please...only in the briefest of moments.)

3) When we must see things from the first person perspective. And, even that should be mostly camera-on-rails movement.

Nope. Not here. Instead, we get treated to the invisible camera (not a character) literally running around to capture the action. And, it can induce sea sickness. It was completely unnecessary. It doesn't add to the scene. Nobody is carrying the virtual POV. There is zero reason to make your audience seek out the nearest popcorn bag. Besides, your movie costs hundreds of times more then the average consumer grade camera. No reason to bring your quality downwards, because you think action needs the shakes.

Hollyweird. Do us all a favor and drop The Cloverfield Effect. For the sake of everyone who came to have a good time.

Now, then...

▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀ !!!SPOILER ALERT!!! ▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄

I went in with a preview in mind. It looked like they had a fairly close re-visioning of the original. And, I was cool with it.

-BUT-

The pace seemed a bit slow. They gave a lot of time towards some discussion topics. And, they very clearly placed it all into a post 9/11 world. As the movie literally starts out with a mostly robotic army, patrolling a third world nation and how Americans weren't willing to have that scene in their neighborhoods.

They also took a more detailed look into the impact between Murphy and his family. Also tweeked the story line so that Murphy is instantly known as to have become apart of the machine by everyone.

Then, there was the pops at how the media controlled the news feed to it's viewers.

The movie seems to take as much time letting the viewer be an eyewitness to the morality of cyborgs and robots becoming a daily thing as it did, exploring notions. Was it trying to be too much, though? I mean, Robocop was more about the action and this movie treated action like it was the dessert that came after a heaping plate full of thought envoking scenes. In fact, if I had the chance to measure in time how much each scene amounted to, I'm sure that a pie chart wouldn't even have 30% devotion to action. And, that's probably my biggest let down. The movie was trying too hard to fuel discussions around the water cooler. (So to speak.)

As for the new, improved suit. Personally, I liked it. -EXCEPT- for one thing. Thanks to CG, it has that Iron Man ability to be built and torn apart on command. (Which is really cool, IMHO.) It also reveals just how much of Murphy was kept intact. OK. It's not gory, so to say. But, you get a full view of Murphy's lungs in action and his inner throat. Plus, his exposed brains. Oh, yea. His blood pumps in and out of transparent tubes in the back of the chair, too. It's a very clean surgery approach. But, I just have a weak stomach for that kind of stuff. So, I kind of wished that some of the metal had stayed in place over such details. Oh, and he needs to return to that chair every night for direct food and blood cleaning. Kind of limits his ability to go roague like he did in the original movies. Maybe they should have kept with the 'baby food' approach??? Because the movie didn't even ask if we wanted to know that the man no longer has a digestive system.

Some of those classic one liners have been worked in. Maybe even a few of the original movie's scenes flew by. (I'm not sure.) And, while I do feel that this update was a great reboot to the franchise that had gone cold, I truly wish that it had a little more mindless action and a little less brain food. So...yea. I went in, hungry for an hour-plus of mindless action and got a ton of discussion about letting robots govern the Human population, the morals of if Man really should be merged with machine, if the police are truly so corrupt, if families can survive such disasters as the near loss of a loved one, bla, bla, bla...

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Re: Just saw Robocop...

Post by Knightee » Wed Dec 06, 2017 12:03 am

I need to watch it again after reading this

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