B.C. taxpayers who were none too pleased when the final tab for the expansion of the Vancouver Convention Centre came in at a whopping $388 million over the estimated budget might take a degree of comfort from the new Robocop movie.
In a teaser for the film, which opens in theatres Feb. 12, the titular crimefighting cyborg lays waste to the contentious Coal Harbour complex while battling a small army of killer robots.
Then again, the remade Robocop — directed by Hollywood newcomer José Padilha — might not provide much solace at all given that it’s likely going to be yet another example of millions of dollars that would’ve been better spent elsewhere.
It’s not as if anyone was crying out for a gritty reboot of a film pretty damn gritty to begin with. In Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original, the main character, Alex Murphy (played by Peter Weller), is graphically tortured to death by a gang of evil drug dealers before being brought back to life via experimental robotic enhancements paid for by an equally evil mega-corporation who run a dystopian Detroit in the near-future. Terrible things ensue.
Robocop was a surprisingly smart anti-capitalist, Reagan-era satire and predicted the city of Detroit declaring bankruptcy nearly three decades before it came true. It’s become such a cult classic that Detroit residents, despite having some rather more pressing problems to deal with, have kicked $67,000 into a Kickstarter campaign to erect a 10-foot bronze statue of Robocop. Keep in mind this is for a movie that was actually filmed in Dallas.
The 2014 version stars Joel Kinnaman (best known for playing non-robotic cop Stephen Holder on the locally shot TV series The Killing) as the robo popo and boasts a number of heavy-hitters such as Gary Oldman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson, so maybe it won’t totally suck after all. But, if the dismal reviews or box office numbers for the 2012 version of Total Recall are anything to go by, trying to make expensive, CGI-laden versions of campy Paul Verhoeven sci-fi films might not be a good idea.
Some things were not meant to be improved on.
If you must watch a robot policeman patrolling the futuristic mean streets of Vancouver, you might want to save twelve bucks and simply start watching the new J.J. Abrams-produced TV series Almost Human instead.
