#44 - Robocop (2014)

[00:00:00] Welcome to Properly Howard, a podcast that reviews classic films and other pulp fiction. Today we take a look at the remake of the classic science fiction film Robocop. This is a fresh look at the moral conundrum about what happens when you tinker with the

[00:00:34] natural order of things and give Samuel L. Jackson mit Romney's hair. With me to discuss this film is Dr. Anthony Ladon. Did you watch Cook Hain Bear? No, not yet. I've heard it's not great. Weird. Yeah.

[00:00:56] I feel like, you know, before I thought, I really got to see this. This is really fascinating to me because it's based on a true story. I don't know if you knew this. Oh yeah. You did know.

[00:01:13] I was thinking maybe it would be interesting if having neither of us seen it both pitch a sequel for Cook Hain Bear 2. In the same way that Superman 3 has seemingly zero knowledge of the Superman movies that came before it. Or what's Superman in general really?

[00:01:35] I had an idea for Cook Hain Bear 2 because I think at this point they're just going to hand the franchise to anyone given the box office returns. My idea is Cook Hain Bear goes to New York. Jason takes Manhattan type. A little bit.

[00:01:53] Yeah, this is a very solid sequel trope. It's like, you know, Gremlins, the first Gremlins was in a small town. Then some Gremlins too they go to New York or Home Alone 2 is lost in New York. And of course you just mentioned Jason.

[00:02:11] I think it's a pretty solid move to bring the mythology to the big city. You could dream big, right? Think of Cook Hain Bear like a Jason Voorhees or a Michael Myers and just put him in new situations.

[00:02:30] I was thinking more like Wolf of Wall Street, more like Bear of Wall Street. Oh, OK, so. He's gotten the Cook Hain but the Cook Hain has not led him onto a murderous rampage. This time the Bear wants to become a Wall Street executive.

[00:02:48] He's decided to short the system and we'll bring in some sort of nanotech AI to give the Bear super intelligence or something like this. But his Cook Hain habit kind of runs throughout the whole story.

[00:03:02] Well I like the idea that it's not even in nanotechnology, it's just he's so coked out that he can't help. What happens is if you give a Bear, it's a classic proverb, give a Bear a Cook Hain

[00:03:19] If you give a Moosa muffin, he'll want another muffin but if you give Cook Hain to a Bear, he will immediately become a Wall Street douchebag. Well it's just like an inevitability, right?

[00:03:30] Like oh no the Bear is reacting to Cook Hain and so now he's on a murderous rampage. It's like what happens if he has even more Cook Hain? Well now he's got to move into finance. Yeah, this is leveling up is what's happening here.

[00:03:42] Yeah, it's just like it's a logical reaction at that point. And what happens is you've got an Al Pacino character who becomes really dependent on the Bear because the Bear is sort of the new up and coming superstar. He realizes this Bear's gonna save our sinking ship.

[00:04:02] Well it's kind of like the movie Speed, we call it Coke I guess but it's because like we just said he gets the cocaine and he goes on a murderous rampage and then he gets more cocaine and now he becomes like a financial savant.

[00:04:19] But there's always the concern that he does less cocaine and goes back to a murderous rampage so you're always trying to keep him at a certain coked out level, right? So Pacino is constantly trying to just get more Coke but what they don't know is what happens

[00:04:32] if you go to that next threshold, right? Like so we know that there's regular Bear, cocaine Bear murderer, extra cocaine Bear, financial savant. What is the next tier? And that's what I love the idea that we just get to a point where,

[00:04:49] and then like eventual movie would be like you know, cocaine Bear rehab, right? So we just put him back, we put him back out there. Eventually the Bear gets brain damage and it becomes Paddington Bear at the end.

[00:05:02] That's right but then you have the next sequel which is cocaine Bear like five, relapse and he gets cocaine again. Becomes President of the United States. Right, that's tier seven. Air Force One cocaine Bear snakes on a plane.

[00:05:22] Basically just, it's a shot for shot remake of Air Force One but we replaced Harrison Ford with a CGI Bear. So we have not seen cocaine Bear but we are pretty confident that we can come up with a sequel and... I think we get it.

[00:05:42] We basically got from the preview. That's all we need to run with cocaine Bear 2 lost on Wall Street. Cocaine Bear 2 bear market. Bear, there it is. It was hanging there. I missed it. He was just sitting there the whole time.

[00:06:00] Our listeners all four of them were like, come on man, get there. Very good, very good. Steve would you rather have the career of Gary Oldman or Michael Keaton? I'll go with Keaton. Really?

[00:06:28] Okay, I mean you have a special place in your heart for Keaton but I know that you're a big Gary Oldman fan. Yeah, but if I get, I mean you're gonna tell me I'm gonna be Batman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As opposed to Oldman?

[00:06:41] Well, and at one point Keaton does become Old Man and Batman. Yeah, exactly simultaneously. Yeah, I mean Gary Oldman probably has the most diverse career like the two. Arguably the most range. I think that's probably pretty safe.

[00:06:56] So it gets a chance to be a lot of really fun characters. But Keaton, like I said, he got a chance to be Batman in a Tim Burton movie. That's pretty special spot on. So I'm gonna go Oldman and I think it's because of the consistency.

[00:07:09] I think that there was a good decade, almost 20 years where it was like whatever happened to Michael Keaton. And it could be that that was just my perception of it. But I think if you look at Oldman's career, it's just like solid double,

[00:07:26] double after double after, you know, every now and again a triple and every now and again a home run. But it's just like man he's just hitting for average. He's like Mark Grace. Yeah, right, right.

[00:07:37] He's gonna give you a professional at bat every single time he's on screen. And maybe the highs aren't as high. But I mean, he was church held most recently. Yeah, the funny thing about Keaton too is that like for when Oldman

[00:07:51] would become a leading like the lead guy, like it always felt a little odd to some degree, right? Because like he's kind of made his stamp on films by supporting or scene stealing. So when he becomes the main, like he certainly has the capability but it's interesting.

[00:08:07] It feels like, I mean, I wonder if it has this same impact, right? Like can he impact like almost like going back to your baseball analogy. Like some guys just come in and just amazing pinch hitters.

[00:08:20] Yeah, I don't think that either of these guys can't hit lefties though. I think that, right, right. Like I was wondering in this movie, like if you were to swap those two and let Keaton play the scientist and Oldman play the billionaire, whatever.

[00:08:35] I still think you get a pretty decent performance out of each. Yeah. So it'd be, and so I guess a way to go that question further is like which of these is a better, which of these would be better long term?

[00:08:47] More Oldman as a lead or more Keaton as a supporting? Yeah, right. If Keaton had sort of like, I'm just going to do character actor work five times a decade and I'm going to steal scenes. I think he could have had an Oldman's career.

[00:09:07] Well, and I think, and I think that's maybe what he was doing. Like during that timeframe when you said he kind of didn't do his best work or I think maybe that's maybe where he was, right?

[00:09:15] I think he was now becoming more of a supporting like I think of the other guys, right? Like talk about scene stealing, right? I mean, he's, he's, here's a movie that's chock full of comedy, but he's arguably the funniest part of it.

[00:09:27] You know, he takes little Jackie Brown. He, I guess this is like maybe towards more his resurgence when he became the vulture and left him. I loved him as a vulture. That was, that was a fantastic movie.

[00:09:41] And here's the thing about Keaton and I could be forgetting a few things, but there, there were a few like really sort of dogs of film that he was the lead. Okay. And I can't think of like any movie that Oldman where Oldman was like lead actor

[00:10:02] that turned into kind of a dog of a film, but it could just be that he had less opportunity. Like how do you feel about Bram Stoker's Dracula? I mean, look, I don't like that movie at all, but he was absolutely the best part of that movie.

[00:10:15] He was wildly entertaining, but maybe he felt to me like as much as I enjoyed watching every single scene he's in, he is as much of a problem of that movie as anything else. He was not what was bringing that movie down.

[00:10:31] No, but he was kind of a byproduct of it. Right? Like his performance, like maybe that's, it's also a credit, right? You're matching exactly what this movie is trying to do. And that's, and that's, it certainly is a choice. All right. Let's talk Robocop. All right.

[00:10:48] So Robocop, the original Robocop is a movie that's near and dear to your heart. Very much so. I've only ever recently picked it up. You know, it's a movie that really doesn't have any nostalgia for me.

[00:11:04] And I think walking away, I thought, yeah, I can see why Steve likes that. It's not near and dear to my heart as it is to yours. So for me, I like, I see a movie like that and I'm thinking this is kind of ripe for remake.

[00:11:17] Like I could see wanting to pare away the 80s specific elements because it's supposed to be in your future, right? Right. I can see like getting out your carrot peeler and like getting rid of the 80s veneer

[00:11:34] and retelling that story in a new way for a new audience. So I feel like because I don't have much history with the original, I was really open to this remake. I'd like to hear you talk a little bit about that. Well, yeah.

[00:11:52] And I kind of would like to have more, because this is good, good to hear because like for me, you know, we talk about remakes all the time and the remakes is such a becomes its own genre. Right? It becomes it creates its own set of challenges,

[00:12:04] especially if you're going to remake something that's that's that is near and dear to people's hearts or has like, because Robocop is I would say it maybe is a little bit more than a cult classic

[00:12:14] because I don't feel like I feel like it is much more widely embraced and referred to. But it's on two sequels. Uh huh. A TV show, line of toys, cartoons, video games.

[00:12:28] I mean, this thing was Robocop is it's still showing up in Mortal Kombat, you know, iterations, right? Like Robocop is is a cultural iconic figure. And it was a wildly successful one. I mean, two is not good. Three is worse. The TV series.

[00:12:48] I mean, like nothing got better as it as they as they kept on duplicating it. But it was clearly. I mean, so I think that's the thing is it's not like if it was a cult classic being remade, that's one thing.

[00:12:59] And you can say, oh, well, we're going to risk alienating a segment of the population that really reveres this.

[00:13:06] But to go ahead and do this again, it was interesting that they like because it didn't have like like Predator is another example of just like I just kept it wouldn't stop right now. And it's still going and we're seeing, you know, remakes.

[00:13:18] And then we got it took us all of that to get to like the prequel of Predator, which is which is wonderful. Right.

[00:13:25] So you get so but so Robocop had that and then it just sort of died out a little bit and then OK, let's remake it, which is a challenge because it's one thing to just take the universe on again. What's another thing to say?

[00:13:36] Well, we're going to retell the story. Because what it assumes, I think in this particular case is people want a way they want to they want an updated version of this of this origin story.

[00:13:51] And and I and I think it also this movie, one of its mistakes that it makes. And we get more into the critique as we go along is is that it thinks Robocop is the reason like the existence of Robocop is the reason why Robocop was as.

[00:14:08] Highly regarded as it was for toys and for video game, sure. But in terms of like people actually like in the movie, I mean, there's the Robocop world, I think is what people are more interested in.

[00:14:18] I mean, this is sort of gave a hint toward it's sort of a world built around Robocop. I almost feel like this one, the remake set Robocop in our world. And it's supposed to be it's supposed to be a near future, but it really does feel well.

[00:14:35] Oh, well, this this feels like the world I live in. I mean, even down to like the Fox News kind of sure. Yeah, but I would argue that this I mean, wasn't the original Robocop doesn't that takes place like it is a near future, but it feels no.

[00:14:49] No, no, there's certainly that there's 80s. I guess I'm thinking like the world when you say that people loved it because of the world around Robocop. It feels like that original movie had to do more work to build the world because robotics seemed like, you know, forever aware.

[00:15:07] Right? Yeah, this movie has I mean, it took advantage of a lot of opportunities.

[00:15:12] And so this is where I think I wanted to get to two with your kind of fresh eyes on the original, you know, trying to shed some of the nostalgia as I critique this film. If Robocop never existed the original, what would I think of this movie?

[00:15:27] And I think I think that part of the burden of making this movie is because it's a remake and it's so hard to reimagine.

[00:15:39] Right? Because I think you do feel somewhat obliged to to use the source material right like I mean it's so hard to say we're going to remake the whole concept.

[00:15:51] Okay, we got Robocop and like they sort of redid like how I said we really got much more of a point of view. I think from the corporation side maybe more than we got in there.

[00:16:02] I mean, we definitely got it from the from the previous one, but this one is like it's been so much time.

[00:16:07] Yeah, you kind of get the idea that the corporations pushed into a corner and a corner politically and they've realized like, well, we have to kind of meet this constituency.

[00:16:19] And but then we got to make these people happy and at the same time, we're trying to sell a product. And at the end of the day, what's our bottom line? Now the nexus of all of these pressures kind of creates the Robocop, you know, the Murphy character.

[00:16:34] You wouldn't need the Murphy character if there weren't external pressures like that. So yeah, I did like that. Let's just put this on the table. I liked the original Robocop in that experience.

[00:16:48] I didn't love it. And I think I don't know what it was that was missing for me. It could be that that the main character, the Robocop character just wasn't someone that I thought was charismatic enough to hold the role.

[00:17:05] But you think this guy was more caring about it? I like this actor. I've seen this actor in a number of things and I think he's actually decent for what he does. He's far too Swedish to be Robocop.

[00:17:17] I'll say this, the actor that played Robocop was kind of a deterrent for me as a child. It was that grotesque giant bald head sticking out of the robotic frame. That just, he seemed monstrous to me. Yeah. To me, that's what this movie is missing.

[00:17:38] Okay. Well for me I feel like I kind of like the idea that I'm rooting for the guy. Whereas the first movie I was like, eh, I'm not sure I care about this guy.

[00:17:50] Well the movie is that and that's I think one of the key differences for me in those two. And I'm glad you brought that up is that when Murphy looks quote human, he's at his most grotesque. He's at his most un-unviewable version of himself.

[00:18:05] And it's the most disarming and uncomfortable version of himself reminding you that this is at its core an abomination. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's frank. Even that whatever humanity is in there has to, the humanity is held captive by something that it was not meant to be.

[00:18:25] Right. So in this one, it's like I understand it way the movie does two. So here's, okay, here's what I think my issues with the two and I actually don't mind the remake to be honest. I find it to be a little, it gets, it betrays itself.

[00:18:40] It betrays its own, I think cleverness. Whereas I don't think the original did. And then I'll get a little more of that. But I think what you have with the original Robocop and what Verhoeven's doing is it feel like it's kind of like,

[00:18:54] it's a constant critique almost to the satirical point. Even the violence feels satirical and in a commentary on American violence and Americans obsession with violence. So it just feels like it's all just part of that. And it's woven in the fabric of the entire film.

[00:19:15] And you're never supposed to think that the Robocop, like you're kind of supposed to be at arms length with your main character.

[00:19:24] And so that's why like your any feelings you have towards Murphy is almost conceptual, not like what's happening to him in real time because you just like, he's tragic all the way through. Whereas with this one, it feels like they almost accidentally parodied themselves.

[00:19:42] But like they make comments right in there that like the people don't even know what they want until you show them. So they change the look right and that feels like it's a bit of a commentary on the people don't want a modern version of Robocop.

[00:19:53] They want the old version of Robocop. So they take a suit and they modernize it.

[00:19:57] But he, when the movie does it, the movie is in a way, it feels like it's a wink and a nod towards like, yeah, we're going to change the look because even new people that think that it has to look a certain way.

[00:20:05] We're going to give you a new one and you're going to buy it. But I don't think they do. Yeah, but I think at the very end of the movie, they do give us nod to the classic Robocop. Right in this spin.

[00:20:17] And now we'll put a pin in that because that becomes a bit of a problem in this film is that this film does have a little bit of hubris thinking that it is improving on it.

[00:20:28] And so when it does that, every time it makes a reference to the old one, they, it almost makes me go, oh, I was watching this movie and actually like just sort of getting into your world.

[00:20:39] And as soon as you drop a hint to the old one, now I'm thinking of a movie. I think I like better. Okay. And I'm missing and I'm missing that the ability to complete and I get remix are going to do that all the time.

[00:20:52] But like if you say I wouldn't buy that for a dollar. I'm like, oh, that's right. I haven't laughed in this movie once. Yeah, we're going to get laughed in the other one. We're going to get to that. We're going to get to that.

[00:21:01] This movie is much more joyous in my opinion. Okay. All right. So I think I'm right to say that you have not seen The Wire. I'm not. Okay. So do you have any kind of feeling all at all about Michael K. Williams? I usually like him.

[00:21:17] I don't see him a bunch but. Yeah, I mean he sort of was one of the most compelling characters in The Wire for me. He's recently deceased. It was just a really nice surprise. I didn't know he was in this movie.

[00:21:32] And I thought that they were going to fridge him like, oh, he's going to die and that's going to be the primary motivation. But they didn't do that. He got to have a couple really important scenes in this film.

[00:21:44] It was just nice to see him on the screen again. You need me to call a doctor? Come on, Jack. You're going to like this. What the hell are you doing here? You're not going to play good cop, bad cop? Nah, Daniels. Bad cop, robo cop.

[00:21:59] I've recovered 26 guns from Valon's warehouse. 13 serial numbers match weapons missing from evidence and I got your prints all over them. This is bullshit. I also have CCTV footage of you and Valon the same day he tried to kill me.

[00:22:15] You know what they do to cops that's prison, man? Being locked up with the same dudes you put in there? An old beloved actor. I thought he was good. I'm going to trudge up an old cocoons of horror category that we haven't used lately.

[00:22:39] And that is who is this movie for? I think that this is kind of the crucial question for a lot of remakes. Are you making the remake for the people that love the first one and would love to see a new paint job on that?

[00:22:57] Or are you making this for a new generation who maybe stumble over some of the 80s schlock, right? So my feeling is that this is a movie that was made for me. I had no history with the original or not much anyway.

[00:23:15] And I think this is a decent movie. I think that the cast is phenomenal. Honestly, even the bad guys, I don't think that there's a bad actor in the entire group. I think that the story all makes sense.

[00:23:30] Even down to sometimes you'd be like, hmm, they're not going to have a high definition camera at that car explosion. And then later on the movie explains why he's seeing it the way that he's seeing it. There's an actual reproduction aspect to the whole thing.

[00:23:49] This movie has thought through a lot of the storyline issues that I would be suspicious of. So I feel like this movie is made for me.

[00:24:03] I enjoyed this movie throughout and I just, I think if you put the two side by side with someone with no history of these two movies, I think this is probably the better movie. But my feeling is that this is not a movie for you.

[00:24:20] I think it's fun. The modern twist on robotics and how would that, how is that interesting? Well, the interesting thing is what happens when you take humanity out of, you get like drones and you have all of this automated stuff and maybe even more poignant now with AI.

[00:24:39] We're talking what like nine years later, this idea of people losing their jobs to automation. Right. And so there's definitely like, there is a, it took advantage of some of the concerns and some of the stuff that's really going on and it up the political aspect,

[00:25:00] which is appropriate given how politicized everything is now in a way that maybe it wasn't before. So, and it showed how the corporations are kind of working alongside with politics and how those are, so there's a lot of really good stuff in there. The cast is fantastic.

[00:25:20] They took a lot more, they spent a lot more time on the creation of Robocop. And maybe this goes to my, you know, Frankenstein's one of my favorite stories.

[00:25:32] And I have a hard time with it whenever it's on screen and maybe this is at the core of it is like, really not that interested in how Frankenstein monsters created. I mean, that's fascinating. It's a fascinating idea, but that's not the heart.

[00:25:47] That's not at the core of the film or the story. But when it goes to the film, like, and I feel like this movie fell into a lot of traps where it's like,

[00:25:58] I was checked out on a lot of the action sequences because I didn't find them to be particularly interesting or new, right? I didn't. And to me, that was like, I was less interested in whether or not Robocop could handle an army of robots or multiple Ed 209s.

[00:26:15] To me, that's just not a part of the story that matters a whole bunch. Like, yeah, I believe. To me, I felt like that was one of the best innovations. Well, it's an improvement if you want, if you think that it needs to be an action movie.

[00:26:28] Okay. Number one, this is an action movie. Yes. I don't like many action movies. So I think that, like, in terms of using an action sequence to tell a story, it's not easy to do.

[00:26:44] And for me, the story that they were telling, and I was sort of like making notes through, I was like, they didn't do the memory thing. Like when Robocop first becomes Robocop, they were supposed to erase his memory.

[00:26:57] And then he doesn't remember his old partner and he doesn't remember his family. And then he discovers that later on. And I was a little disappointed that they didn't do that for this one.

[00:27:06] And then I realized, oh no, they didn't do that because they're doing something more interesting. What they introduced in this movie that I thought was fascinating was when he's fighting all those other robots, what we're learning as the backstory is that he thinks he's in control. Right.

[00:27:25] It's the illusion of, what did they say? Free will. Yeah, it's the illusion of free will. I think that's the key sci-fi component that I'm not sure that I've seen in many sci-fi movies.

[00:27:41] We've had a lot of movies about free will. We've had lots of movies about AI. We've had a lot of movies about human and, you know, cyborg interaction and whatnot. But the nuance that they bring here is the illusion of free will.

[00:27:57] And that I think opens up the larger question of like, is free will always an illusion? And to introduce that during an action sequence is something that I don't think most action movies are brave enough to do. No, and I would agree.

[00:28:13] And I think that's where my disappointment in this movie is. I think that they actually had the framework for a lot of, they put a lot of really compelling ideas on the table. That being one of them.

[00:28:24] And what I felt a little bit cheated on is that it would then be like, but he's now got, he's gotten his free will back to fight the robots. You know what I mean? It's like, I felt like it did that. Yeah, you're right.

[00:28:42] And this is where I think science fiction, you know, and I think you'll agree with me on this is why science fiction is more compelling than an action film. And this had. Well, you don't, you can have those some, you can have the two simultaneous.

[00:28:53] In fact, I would say that the first Robocop is absolutely that merger. Right?

[00:28:57] Right. And I feel like this one had in this might have been like, yeah, I think if we talked about this before, like one of my critiques of Man of Steel is, is you're right there.

[00:29:06] Like you had, you introduced some elements and you and you were ready to explore them. And then you sort of devolved into a little more cookie cutter, Hollywood action, which is what the original Robocop does not do it sort of bucks that throughout.

[00:29:21] And, and I, and so when it talked about when you talk about the courage, I definitely think that there was courage there but I also felt like it didn't follow all the way through because then it like that look, I'd say that the last act and the

[00:29:35] is he going to make it to, it was just kind of like, just that it didn't move me at all.

[00:29:41] Where I was, I was way more moved by the idea of the, the free will as an illusion, way more moved by some of the machinations in the background and what's going to happen with like, like, because like I feel like he didn't get it.

[00:29:52] I didn't get enough of like, like it was just, I was, it was narrated what was happening. Right?

[00:29:58] Like, I mean, it's like he's, he's not, he's doing his own thing. It's like, but we're getting that because, you know, Gary Oldman is now, you know, narrating what's going on and instead of there being that extra, like, I'm all you could have cut a lot of those action sequences to give me some more of those personal things.

[00:30:14] Because I think it was a clever, they did a really good job of not just recreating. They gave us a new reason why he was injured. They gave us a new reason why he was created in the first place.

[00:30:27] And then like you said that the idea that that he wasn't like, like the heat, they flipped it right that you could turn him off or in this one he had to turn him, or the original he kind of has to turn himself on.

[00:30:39] And it was initially created to be essentially just a robot that has human, there's some human capabilities. But the, but whereas this one was the other way, right? You had to, you would have to modify that part.

[00:30:53] So I'll tell you the one tweak, I'll actually give you two tweaks that I would do to improve this film that I felt like, and I'll just steal them right from the original film. The two things that I thought that the original did much better were sort of the last scene where the Robocop failsafe is intact.

[00:31:19] And then the CEO gets fired. Right. And then as soon as he's fired, now he can be dealt with right? That's a pretty good scene. Yeah, I like I love that one. This one he just it was sort of like mind over machine and he just wills his arm up and pulls the trigger or something.

[00:31:39] Yeah. And I kind of felt like I like the first iteration better for sure, because I think that that actually undermines the free will concept right? Yeah, the illusion.

[00:31:53] And that's why I think it going back to like the look of him and when he's at his most human, he's at his most grotesque as I like the idea because like that tension stays throughout the entirety of it. Right? Like Robocop does Robocop goes on to live in the other one kind of, I mean that's tragic.

[00:32:09] Whereas this one sort of gave the idea like, well, good news. He's in his old suit and now the family is back together. I'm like, it is tragic, but I don't know if it played itself off enough. Like whereas the other one I felt like was very clear it knew.

[00:32:21] This one I wasn't sure how self aware it was at the end. Like, like, so what do you mean? What are you going to do? You're going to still be a police officer? You don't get to retire now?

[00:32:36] I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's like it is it was a weird ending in the sense that I wasn't sure how I was supposed to and I felt like, and I will say that were the some of the satire and the commentary that was in the first one was while some of it was very bombastic and how it was demonstrated there was still a subtlety to it.

[00:32:57] Every time Samuel Jackson's character got on the screen, I'm like, I know what you're doing. Oh, I was going to say that it's never not funny to watch Sam Jackson yell and curse.

[00:33:08] Well, sure. But I mean, in terms of like that works for me every even when he sort of doing a parody of himself at the end there. I can I love it. I absolutely love it. It's it is it's an enjoyable thing.

[00:33:22] But in terms it did take me out of this film because I'm like, are you like it almost felt like we'll just put these maybe this is there. I'll buy that for a dollar moment, right? Like every time he shows up.

[00:33:33] But it does feel like it feels a little ham-fisted in terms of its attempt at if it's trying to be satire or commentary. It's like like it's so clear what's going. You know what I mean? It's like there was nothing those those moments lost any subtlety.

[00:33:48] Yeah, I think that that's the key difference between these two. I feel like this this is trying to be straight sci-fi and it's trying to like sort of downplay any of the satire elements. Whereas the first one was very clear. It was meaning to be both.

[00:34:08] The other thing that I would say about this is that I didn't laugh once in this movie. Right. So I kind of amused by Sam Jackson. You know, it always brings me joy but I did not laugh at all.

[00:34:27] And the first one, you know there was a couple really funny parts. And also Kurt Witt-Smith is amazing in the first part. Dang it's got a personal, aren't it? I'll mess around! The most non-villainy looking villain of all time.

[00:35:05] So for a film that had like some really impressive comedic actors, it kind of squeezed all the humor out of it. It was sort of like there was no aside from Sam Jackson which I thought he was funny. Jay Berichels has some moments. Maybe so, maybe so.

[00:35:28] But I just think that this could have been punched up for sure, I feel like. Which you called out earlier for sure. Was there a tweak that you would have done to this film, Zoom for a bit? I would have moved the action down.

[00:35:49] I would have probably downplayed some of the, because I think it really expects, and maybe that's, maybe I'm asking an action movie to not be an action movie. I just felt like when you got, they had created so many compelling interesting things. Like we just talked about.

[00:36:04] And then to assume that if you're buying into all that, you also really want, like is he going to be able to get through the building with all these different robots? That to me was sort of like, I don't know, we're doing this instead.

[00:36:21] Because you're introducing some really, maybe the subna, a slight tweak that you asked for. It's kind of like a wholesale redoing of the third act. But I just think. I mean that's kind of like the classic problem with action films, right? Right.

[00:36:39] If you don't like the third act of every action film in the world, then that means you don't like action films. Yeah, it's possible. Yeah, and it could be that there's a, I mean, because I think that there was definitely some,

[00:36:52] they introduced a lot of really cool things. And I'm not, and again, I don't dislike this movie. It's the second time I've watched it. But I had almost identical feelings the second time around.

[00:37:05] Like I thought I might like something less or like something better, but it was like, oh, that's right. This was my issue with it the last time as I was the effects are stunning. The graphics are, I mean, it's really upsetting when the suit's taken off, right?

[00:37:20] And so I think there was some really cool stuff that was happening there, but then it would just get undercut by some of its, like it wouldn't miss. It felt like it was missing its own point sometimes.

[00:37:29] And I almost wonder if that's a studio thing, right, as opposed to the director. Was there a cliche, a device or a trope in this film that worked for you? I like a bad guy, like a Jackie Earl Haley that just doesn't like robots. But he makes them.

[00:37:49] There's an interesting, like he just, like there's a, I don't know if it's a trope that you see a ton, but like the idea that there's somebody that's like the expert, the bad guy expert into something and he looks down on it, right?

[00:38:01] And so like referring to him as the Tin Man and all that, there was just, I just... Yeah, I thought he was an affected bad guy. I like Michael Keaton as an evil genius. I think that works. I like a movie with an evil genius.

[00:38:16] Well, I also like that Keaton played it pretty mellow. Like this is a character that some people could have, like if you, okay, let's go back to what we just talked about. Let's flip Keaton and Oldman. Right.

[00:38:30] I think this evil genius, there's a lot more over the top moments, right? And I think that with Keaton, I mean Keaton like when he sort of dismisses, Mrs. Murphy at the end like, hey, you know, we're gonna do whatever we can to take care of you.

[00:38:48] He's like, well, I don't want anything to do with you. And we're like, okay. I perfectly understand. You don't want millions of dollars. I totally understand. You know what I mean?

[00:38:59] Like he did a really good job of, like he didn't mail it in and he didn't go over the top.

[00:39:04] Like I think he really nailed that type of, like I believed he was a bit of a sociopath who believed enough that what he was doing was good to sort of motivate others around him.

[00:39:14] But then when it came time to no longer do that, it was like, all right, we're done. I like, I really liked the, okay, this isn't trophy. This is just something that I liked. The opening scene with the guy who's playing the guitar with the robotic fingers.

[00:39:30] I thought that was a really effective scene because it sort of does the dual purpose of like introducing the Keaton and the Oldman characters and what their relationship is to each other.

[00:39:44] But it also introduced the idea that the emotionality of the human brain for some reason causes the mechanism to malfunction. And I thought that was a really good way to show that. Right.

[00:40:02] And it didn't take a, just in terms of economy of space and telling the story that they wanted to tell. I thought that was a really decent. Yeah, and you also introduced the technology. You introduced the technology.

[00:40:15] You also introduced the Keaton walks in and like he knows exactly what classical composer and the movement of the, sort of just to remind people that this guy didn't become a billionaire for no reason. He's actually kind of smart.

[00:40:30] And I don't feel like at any point did I think like, well, that was kind of a dumb move. You're supposed to be a genius. That's really stupid move. Right up until the very, very end, like almost the last scene of the movie.

[00:40:43] I really believe that Keaton is that smart. Right. So I liked. Well, I didn't love the choice to like have the gun on the family and all that. It felt like it didn't work in terms of everything that the character had done up at this point. Maybe not.

[00:41:02] Maybe not. That was kind of an. Yeah, I know. And that moment was sort of one of the moments that didn't work for either.

[00:41:11] Also with that other sequence and going back to the Keaton Oldman characters, I really did like we see Oldman as all truistic but also looking to get a buck. Right? Basically he doesn't want to do this.

[00:41:30] He doesn't think it's moral but he's like, yeah, but like Keaton didn't have to like put on a big demonstration and like try to convince him that it was moral.

[00:41:40] He did say if you do this, oh, this would be a really big thing for our company and then we could really fund all your good stuff that you want to do. Yeah, I think ultimately Oldman is a good character but he's not unbelievable. He's corruptible. Corruptible, right?

[00:41:57] So I like that. I really think they did with this movie was they took out the stuff we used to forgive in action sequences and it tried to lean into the sci-fi. And if you're into sci-fi, you really want those believable moments, right? Right.

[00:42:16] If you're in it for the action, if you want to go to an action movie, you kind of forgive a lot of those issues. So I don't know.

[00:42:27] I mean, look, if you liked the first one because you liked the satire and you liked the schlock, then you're absolutely not going to like this movie. I think you got to be careful with schlock.

[00:42:36] I think you're painting this is like people liked it because it doesn't hold up and that wasn't the case then. It was a very, very successful and popular movie when it came out and not because of schlock.

[00:42:49] All right. The first, the original movie opens with a military demonstration in a boardroom. Right. You've got people in suits falling out of windows. This is not the movie that's going to open with that. So yeah, they kind of tone down, they ease into the action.

[00:43:15] Well, I don't know if they eased into the action. I mean, we start off with suicide bombers jumping on edge. Oh, you're right. I forgot about that. Let's settle down on the idea that this came in with a real subtle introduction. I forgot about the whole...

[00:43:30] It does create a little bit of like a, huh, factor. No, I know you're right about that. This is where I talk about a little bit of like the hamfisted messaging in some cases was so on the nose that it became a little bit...

[00:43:43] All right, I'm going to finish back on that a little bit. So Americans don't want prototypes of robotic violence on our streets, but we're fine to see them used abroad. That seems... There's a bit of truth to that. It's like you want to try a new weapon?

[00:44:03] Go do it in Syria. I think that there's something very American about that. Yeah, I don't know. Did we get... Was that said though? Like, I mean, I don't know what the...

[00:44:15] All they talked about was the approval of the robots in America, but I don't know that the other... The reason why that they weren't doing that in America is because of the Dreyfus Act, right? Right. But of course the military has...

[00:44:31] But people aren't voting for it in other countries. They wanted to demonstrate it as sort of a military device because that was a legal way to demonstrate it. Sure, but I mean, on one hand, I mean the people were voting against it.

[00:44:44] So I mean, I agree with it from a bigger standpoint, but I don't know that they ever explicitly made it clear that the... That could have been an easy graphic to put up on the no-back show was...

[00:44:58] Didn't need it. Didn't need it. I didn't need it. All right. I didn't catch that. I mean, it is... I think that's something you can definitely extract from it though. But yeah, I mean, I guess that sequence, the whole scenario there, it was...

[00:45:13] Like, I think it was effective, but at the same time it was pretty... There was no question like this is what we're talking about, right? And I guess that's fine, but again, in terms of subtlety and... Well, and it's exploiting Islamophobia. I mean, Islamophobia. I mean, that's...

[00:45:30] Oh, sure. And a lot of action films of this period... Which is a bold move. It was a bold move to come out the gate that way too. All right. I... This is a... I don't know if this is a trope, but I just...

[00:45:41] Give me a movie with the dirty cop. Give me a movie with a dirty system and give me the one cop who just can't get along. I'm in for the ride every time.

[00:45:53] I mean, and you know, great move to bring in Michael K. Williams for a movie like that. I like that quite a bit. Steve, is this movie better, worse or on par with your Ron Howard film? This is probably the tougher question for me because I think...

[00:46:17] Actually, maybe I think I am going to say it's properly Howard. And I think it's a... And I want to consider that kind of a compliment in a way. I actually think that this has a lot of like Howard-esque ingredients, like big actors doing good.

[00:46:36] You know, I don't know that anybody was like great, but they were all like... Nobody played necessarily under, but I don't know anybody was punching above either. It was a very good group of performances because it was big ideas that may not have completely been fleshed out.

[00:46:54] I think that's where I'm landing on the Howard thing, like the introduction. How did you feel about in general the special effects in this movie? I think they were pretty good, right? I thought they were decent. At no point was I taken out of it.

[00:47:11] No, the one time I think I would be... I was taken out and this goes back to that sort of like the issue with sometimes when you have remakes is when the Ed 209's like who are moving much more stealthily obviously because they're not stop motion.

[00:47:25] But like when they would fall, they would kind of almost give them that like a little bit of a wink and a nod to the stop motion version of Ed 209 which is like that with the...

[00:47:36] I wouldn't buy that for a dollar and like those moments sort of disrupted the flow.

[00:47:46] Which is because now it's like I'm back to when I'm in, like then I'm thinking back to the other movie which means now I'm looking at this as a movie as opposed to being part of the world

[00:47:55] where I would say the differences is at the end of Robocop. We're gonna hear Murphy, I'm a mess. Gross! Murphy, I'm a mess. They'll fix you. They fixed everything. They fixed everything. That's a great line right? And to me that's a line that I really hold on to.

[00:48:22] I think that's a really fascinating line in the world that they've created and what they do really good in this one is they more than once talk about fixing him and it almost feels like an extension of Robocop the original as opposed to a callback.

[00:48:39] And so that's why I think they did some really good stuff there where they understood what that was but they didn't really like those weren't as on the nose and so I really appreciated that one.

[00:48:50] I think I'm leaning properly Howard for this too which is weird because after watching the first Robocop I thought properly Howard. So I'm giving these both a properly Howard and yet clearly like one more than the other. It's an odd way to live in a world where-

[00:49:14] That critique seems properly Howard. Yeah, I think going back to the idea behind the Howard scale it's just how you felt when the movie was over.

[00:49:27] Yeah, for me and Robocop the original even now watching it obviously I could still look at it through nostalgia but the things that hold up to me make it a Howard plus whatever just because I think there's so much- You can almost say the opposite right?

[00:49:44] I think they're getting so much out of actors that you may not recognize and the choices were much more courageous in a way.

[00:49:56] The choices were much more like they were out there right and many of them executed I think pretty decently and so that's where I would probably lean towards an above Howard. Was there a half the battle one to grow in moment in this film?

[00:50:16] You know just let the alarm go it'll turn itself off. The car alarm? Yeah. So mine is don't record four months of hockey games thinking that your deadbeat dad's gonna watch him with you. Could you imagine? He's like I can- I'm barely alive.

[00:50:42] You're making me watch that much hockey? There's no way your cop dad is gonna sit down and watch four months of recorded hockey with you dude. Yeah. And what's the matter with this kid? Yeah. So you're trying to tell me in 2028.

[00:51:01] In 2028 this kid somehow is not getting information about who won. That's the real reason he's not getting teased at school. She just took him out of school because she's afraid someone's gonna like tell him who won the hockey match. Ruin a hockey score for her. Oh goodness.

[00:51:22] Detroit I like movies set in Detroit. I've never not liked a movie. Yeah it's so funny how the most recent version of Detroit is way cleaner than the 80s version. 80s version looks way more like Detroit is now.

[00:51:36] I've never seen a movie set in Detroit that didn't like- love all of it.