Reviewed: RoboCop (2014)

A large portion of responses to movies nowadays seems to be, “Eh, not as good as the original.” There’s no denying that the film industry has a fascination with spitting out reboots and remakes of old classics, and it could indeed be said that they are sometimes inferior to the source material. But most of the time we’re simply too quick to judge. If the original film holds any sort of nostalgia for us, then we denounce the new film’s claim to greatness the moment we notice any slight departure from the creative direction of the version in our memories.

I didn’t see RoboCop in 1987 when it first hit cinemas – probably because I wasn’t alive then – but I did make it a priority to watch the original film before the 2014 reboot. Needless to say, they are quite different films. The original was darker in tone, while the reboot glosses over the more grisly details of Alex Murphy’s injury and paints a brighter depiction of the future. The differences are things like: In the original, Alex Murphy had a white female partner in the police force; in the reboot, he has a black male partner. In the original, his family was never shown on-screen; in the reboot, his wife and child play a somewhat major role. In the original, his memory was wiped when he first became RoboCop; in the reboot, it was only after several field tests that they began manipulating his brain, and then only to suppress his human emotions, leaving his memory intact. In the original, Alex Murphy’s character is shown to be mostly calm and reserved; in the reboot, he’s first introduced having a heated argument with some fellow officers for making suspiciously little progress on their case.

Both films tell a similar story of corporate greed and corruption, however. The message of the original film was well-hidden – it was clear who the good and bad guys were, but what was the point of the whole story? To say that privatised law enforcement is a bad idea? By contrast, the reboot’s message is more heavy-handed: Alex Murphy is a pawn in a larger scheme to put fully-automated robots on the street to better protect Americans. The question here is whether a robotic police force would actually be better than a human one, and the film addresses that question with gusto. Samuel L. Jackson’s segments where he plays a highly biased talk show host are entertaining to watch, and his overzealous manner makes you actually think about the issue instead of agreeing blindly. There’s also the moral question – whether unfeeling robots should be allowed to fight crime on our behalf – which is addressed as well.

The reboot pays homage to the original in many ways. “I’d Buy That For A Dollar” was a rather strange TV show in original film’s universe, and while it’s not present in the reboot (thank goodness) it is cleverly referenced at one point. The original Alex Murphy had a habit of swirling and holstering his handgun Wild-West-style to impress his son, and likewise the new RoboCop has a similar quirk, though it’s no longer something that identifies Murphy to his partner. Other such homages are present in both the screenplay and dialogue for those old enough (or interested enough) to have seen the original film.

What really stands out in the reboot though is the performances of Michael Keaton as the head of OmniCorp (great evil-corporation-name, that) and Gary Oldman as the doctor who works on RoboCop. Both are exemplary actors and they breathe life into every scene they appear in. Their roles are inherently conflictive – Gary Oldman, as a doctor, wants to act in Murphy’s best interests, while his boss demands results at any cost. The cycle of problem, clash of morals, solution is more than anything what engages the viewer and makes you empathise with the characters. Jackie Earle Haley’s great too, as always.

One of the main interests the film held for me was the discourse on AI: how much should we allow automation to rule our lives? Today we live in a world where computers are (as yet) less intelligent than humans but far more efficient at processing information, leading to useful applications in expert systems, data retrieval (think Siri), and self-driving cars (they’re coming, slowly but surely).
In the world of RoboCop, they’re also able move around (an achievement in itself), identify both known felons and other threats to public safety, and swiftly act in response. But should they? Or should we keep a human element in the loop, a la RoboCop? Or should we keep some things – like law enforcement – as human-operated as possible? Even the best-checked computer system is prone to bugs, hardware failure, or other unforeseen scenarios.

On another note, is human consciousness something we can or should manipulate as we do a computer? Are our values and decision-making process determined solely by chemicals in our brain? I don’t believe so, but there are many who do, and many who would augment our mental faculties in any way possible.

RoboCop offers but a glimpse into these questions, but it’s a compelling glimpse that sparks a debate we could well be having in a number of years.

The film’s presentation – its visual design, RoboCop’s first-person HUD, the special effects, writing, and so on – is naturally more modern and hence more approachable than the 1987 film, which is definitely a mark in its favour. The nay-sayers would probably have a valid point about the somewhat wooden acting of Murphy and his wife, but they have reasonable excuses (he’s half-robot; she’s distraught for much of the film) and the shining performances of Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, and to a lesser extent Samuel L. Jackson and Jackie Earle Haley, more than make up for any hollowness on the leading man’s part.

If you’re at all interested in AI or automation or a fan of the aforementioned actors, RoboCop is definitely a film you’ll enjoy. Now, if only it paid homage to the hilarious scene in the original where the giant bipedal robot tries ascending some stairs…

In other news, I apologise for the lack of a new post last week – my family and I were busy getting sunburnt. But henceforth I’ve decided to update this blog every fortnight instead of every week, partly because the university year will be starting again soon but mostly because I intend to spend every other week working on a novel. It’s shaping up well so far, and I’d like to invest more time into fleshing out the story I’ve had floating around in my head for a few years.

The Age of Distraction

The last time someone asked you how you were going, chances are your response was “busy” – and indeed, it would seem that busy is becoming the new fine.

Why are we always busy? Because we have a lot of things to do, you might say. Why do we have a lot of things to do? How much time each day do we spend doing things that we don’t really need to? Checking Facebook, browsing forums, scanning news feeds, playing mobile games… The list goes on.

To quote the Focus manifesto (a free eBook you should probably check out if any of this resonates with you), we live in the Age of Information – but a better name for it would be the Age of Distraction. Before I continue, here’s a nice colourful reference for ways to focus in the Age of Distraction, courtesy of Learning Fundamentals (click it for the full-sized image):

Anyway, the main argument associated with this observation is that we should turn everything off and read a book once in a while. And while that’s a good point, I’d like to add another: the modern age threatens to rob us of our sense of wonder.

Think of the movie industry and where it started off – fantastic costumes and sets brought to life by cleverly editing reels of film. Audiences would stare on in wonder – wondering just how the film-makers managed such effects. This continued for decades as new tricks and techniques were brought into the industry, arguably culminating with the advent of computer-generated imagery, or CGI as we so casually say. Now movies no longer amaze as they used to. Oh, sure, there are still impressive spectacles and amazing effects in them, but we don’t wonder how those effects are made, because the answer is usually as simple as “CGI”, since CGI is now capable of putting nearly anything on the screen.

I posit that a similar transition is taking place in us as we move forwards through the Age of Information. With all the information, media, and entertainment at our fingertips, the world seems to lose its vibrancy. How ironic it is that the very technology meant to enhance and enrich our lives is inadvertently trivialising them. We always have so much to do; so much on our minds; how can any one thing be important in the scope of the Internet?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the Internet is a bad thing. I do believe that the Internet is largely a good thing in modern society – but too much of a good thing becomes a neutral thing – commonplace, even stale.

When a light is bright, our eyes adjust to it and we can no longer see into the dark. When everything is at our fingertips, we lose sensation for the individual things. When all our time is spent connected to the rest of the world, we lose our appreciation for what that time means. All of these analogies share an important concept in common: a pivotal shifting of our perception. And this shifting of perception might be irreversible unless we occasionally remove ourselves from the agent causing the shift in the first place. The Internet. Mobile phone alerts. Email notifications. RSS feeds…

We are busy because we make ourselves so. But how busy are we, really, in doing things that actually matter to us? This may come as a shock to some, but spending a few hours or even a few days without the Internet will not reduce our mental faculties or deprive us of any essential learning experiences. We may miss a few headlines, but world will keep spinning. What will happen, almost certainly, is that after a little while our perception will shift back to its original state. Our eyes will adjust once more to the darkness, so to speak. And this isn’t a bad thing – for with this shift in perception will likely come a shift in priorities. Detaching ourselves from the modern behavioural loop that comprises our “busy” lives will allow us to objectively assess whether we’re spending our time productively, or just wasting it away looking at meaningless… stuff. Chances are, the answer will be somewhere between the two extremes – and we’ll have the opportunity to assess exactly where we sit on that scale.

May this serve as a reminder, then, that our time is more valuable than the volume of distractions we indulge would suggest. Take some time for reflection, away from the threat of a phone buzzing or an Internet browser luring you into its windows. Reflect on what’s important to you: whether you’re progressing towards the goals you wish to achieve in life; whether you spend enough time nurturing the relationships we too often take for granted; whether you’re living in a way that you can look back on at the end of your days and be proud of; and most importantly, whether God will agree with that assessment as you begin the rest of eternity.