RoboCop: Prime Directives

"Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"

Apart from that, this was a bit disappointing, too cheesy, too TV-ish for my taste. But I guess that these people had to work on a very very tight budget, so I'll cut them some slack. Obviously there were fans of the original 2 movies involved, so I'll give them credit for that as well.

I do believe, though, that this would have worked much better as a 2-hour movie, with better casting & visuals instead of standardised TV series fare.

It's clear that Julian Grant, Brad Abraham and Joseph O'Brien are fans of Robocop. They have updated the series for the new millenium and spin on a few ideas of their own.

John Cable was an excellent addition to Robocop. Him and Alex Murphy are great to see in action. Cable is similar to Murphy in many ways: family man, law man, takes no nonsense. Full credit to Maurice Dean Wint. His wife, Sara Cable, reminds me of Clarance Boddiker in a few ways as well.

However, some things just don't work: Page Fletcher is physically wrong for Murphy. He's 5 ft 7. Hardly intimidating. Even his son towers over him and his nose is massive, although he does a good job of handling the emotions. The idea to have Robocop constantly shutting down and jumping when shot like an epileptic gets tiring after a while.

Ultimately, a worthy effort.

This made for tv four-parter looks so cheap that it is not even funny any more! In the first part we have BONE MACHINE, who looks like an old HE-MAN action figure. He hides his face behind a mask, that even little children wouldn't find scaring on halloween. Oh yes, he's laughing all the time, because that's really menacing. Right. This tv-movie is as bad as ROBOCOP 3 - only that it looks cheaper. But it actually is WAYYYY better than the cartoon series (which really stinks, by the way). The main problem with the movie is, that the story is not interesting at all. Sometimes ROBOCOP seems nothing more than a sideshow character. Now, they have tried it all: 2 movie sequels, a childish tv-series, 2 animated series and finaly PRIME DIRECTIVES, a mini series, that is quite dark, which is not bad. If they had a decent budget, it could have been a little nicer to watch - despite the lame story. If you think about the original movie, PRIME DIRECTIVES is a shame.

On the first two RoboCop feature films, the producers hired renowned mime artist and choreographer Moni Yakim to help Peter Weller, who played the title role in those pictures, get a handle on the role's intense physicality, and the investment paid off handsomely. On "Prime Directives," however, apparently such expenditures were deemed superfluous and eliminated from the budget. Yet, considering that RoboCop is the miniseries' main character, the character needing to be lavished with the most attention--especially with regard to issues of movement and ambulation, so as to ensure precise execution and verisimilitude--such an oversight on director Julian Grant's part is simply beyond the pale. The sad result: Page Fletcher, who plays RoboCop in "PD," spends most of his time stumbling and bumbling about in the RoboSuit, fists eternally and inexplicably clenched, wildly swinging his arms to and fro in a bizarre echo of Rock'em Sock'em Robots, and walking as if there were a warm, freshly laid dump permanently ensconced in his RoboDrawers.

To add insult to injury, RoboCop's makeup FX in "PD" really leave something to be desired. They are so bad, in fact, that the RoboHelmet-less Fletcher looks like Mandy Patinkin from "Alien Nation," replete with what appears to be a shopworn Tupperware bowl spray-painted a drab gray and hastily slapped onto the back of Fletcher's ridiculously enlarged noggin. What's worse, as the miniseries goes on, Fletcher's RoboSuit seems to fit him less and less snugly. At one point, when RoboCop visits his own gravesite, the suit's chin-guard seems to be floating independently from the rest of the RoboHelmet, careening away from Fletcher's jaw by several maddening inches.

Furthermore, those who are familiar with Julian Grant's decidedly unimpressive B-movie oeuvre (most especially the utterly dreadful direct-to-video "Airborne") know all too well his pronounced limitations as an action filmmaker. Grant fancies himself an ace action director, in the mold of George ("Mad Max") Miller and James ("The Terminator") Cameron. However, unlike those esteemed cinematic kineticists, Grant has absolutely no sense of timing or geography when it comes to arranging action set pieces. To be perfectly candid, his "style," as it were, is actually more in line with that of an unadorned hack like Roger ("Battlefield Earth") Christian. Grant's action scenes go on and on and on, in a way that oscillates between being boringly redundant and spatially confusing. Grant will repeat the same information time and again, such as having a procession of nameless, faceless bad guys meet repetitive, cookie-cutter deaths at the hands (or rather guns) of the good guys, and all the while within settings where it's difficult to tell where the bad guys are positioned at and/or coming from with respect to the good guys.

The verdict: 2 out of 4 stars.

Hmmm, this series doesn't seem to be very popular but on closer inspection the criticism seems to be from the "watched the first 10 minutes then turned off" crew.

I'm unsure how you can fully judge something without watching it but that's the level of mentality here.

Anyway, I think Prime Directives is a great slice of binge entertainment. Nearly 6 hours of action and story set in the Robocop universe and the stories are very interesting too. The usual Robocop themes of family and greed are here but they throw in some plot points about obsoletion as well which I found very cool.

This is a TV production so don't expect any great special effects here but the cinematography is top notch and very moody and it's all absorbing enough to hook you in.

Now it has some bad points and most of that comes from the acting. It's pretty bad right across the board with maybe only one or two standouts but yep, it's really corny. Page Fletcher looks like a poor man's Dennis Hopper and far too short to be Robocop in the first place. He's "ok" as Alex Murphy but honestly he bungles about in the Robo suit looking constipated and his shoulders are so hunched up it loos like he could explode. The rest of the cast fare better but honestly, not by much.

It's surprising because the script, while not the snappiest is really quite good and fuses well with the extended stories and even throws in a some memorable lines here and there.

The best thing about it is that this is the extended runtime. Here we have FOUR feature length episodes all connected to the same skeleton story and it's great fun immersing yourself in the Robocop universe for that amount of time. The 6 hour running time means that the story and plots can really breathe and be fleshed out quite a bit so this adds tremendously to the connection between audience and program.

I honestly think that some people watch this and expect the same quality as the films and that just isn't going to happen.

Regardless aside from some bad acting and Robo himself being somewhat miscast this is a great pieces of quality entertainment that lasts a good while and there is PLENTY to enjoy here believe me so give it all of it) a shot and if you keep in mind it's production you shouldn't be disappointed.

Terrific for tearing into on a binge after the first three films.