RoboCop: Prime Directives

Three movies, a live action TV series and two cartoons later, ROBOCOP returns with a made-for-TV miniseries "ROBOCOP: PRIME DIRECTIVES". This miniseries consisted of four movies which attempted to bring back the gritty and darker tone of the first movie, as well as some social satire. For all intents and purposes, what we have is an ambitious project limited by lack of budget and inexperience of the creative team.

Our story begins 10 years after the first movie (ignoring the continuity of the other movies and TV series). Robocop is obsolete and weary of his years trying to bring peace to the crime ridden Delta City. The megacorporation OCP, who runs the city, is experiencing inner turmoil among the management. Due to new policies preventing use of lethal force by the police, a crime wave is sweeping the city. From Kamikaze gangs to a psycho in Halloween armour armed with machine guns and rockets, this town is going to hell. Fortunately, they have a new kick ass police commander JohnCable; a dual pistol wielding ol fashioned cowboy cop. Oh, and Robocop, the supposedly invincible enforcer of law who spends the entire miniseries getting owned.

Every character goes on about how awesome Robocop is, every criminal mentions his name in fear, you never see that. What you get is Robocop being blasted, kicked down, smashed, electrocuted and pummeled in every other combat scene. He only manages to take down people who refuse to take cover in a firefight.

This brings me the portrayal of Robocop himself played by Page Fletcher. Fletcher is a fine actor, able to convey heavy emotions with his voice and mannerism. He is not, however, I anyway suited to the role. For starters, he is short. As in really short. And the bulky oversized armour only makes him look shorter. Everyone including the old female scientist is taller than him. His Robocop is a stumbling dwarf, always marching with his fists balled up. On the flip side, with his helmet off, Robocop looks like an old man and even acts like one. Nothing is done to make him machine-like. He very visibly pants when tired, swallows hard when scared, he even sweats.

So a crappy Robocop headlines 4 made-for-TV movie length episodes of the miniseries. On the bright side, what the 4 episodes do is attempt to remake and redo some very classic elements from Robocop media history. You have a new more advanced Robocop, something Robocop 2 should have been about. You have a advanced Artificial Intelligence meant to automate the entire city, like th pilot episode of the 90s TV series. Lastly, you have a tale of a machine regaining his humanity. Throughout this story is the tale of James Murphy, son of Alex Murphy, who is now a young executive caught up in the turmoil in OCP. James must come to terms with the discovery of his father's identity as Robocop as father slowly reunites with son.

The overall story is good for its drama. The actors are spot on in their portrayals and it is generally well written with many of the themes inherent in the original films. Of particular note is the hammy Kaydick and the absolutely obnoxious Damien. A huge plus is the miniseries return to R-Rated violence rather than the kid friendly style of fighting in the TV series and Robocop 3.

Sadly the execution is less than sub-par. Director Julian Grant brings a lazy hand to the directing and seems to have this obsession with skip-frame slo mo (the kind of jerky slo mo you get when shooting something at half the usual Frames Per Second). The overall low budget look to the production is heightened by dated special effects, unremarkable camera-work and crappy costumes. The New cyber terrorist villains have the fashion sense of the Matrix characters, all tight, black and trench coats. They have cartoony electrical powers and can move at super speed with a basic blur effect. The low budget is most obvious in the Robopcop suits. During action scenes, they come apart at the seams letting you clearly see the black leotard underneath.

With this, Prime Directives sounded the death knell of the classic Robocop franchise. Perhaps in this new century of movies with fast kicking kung fu combat, high tech special effects and tighter narratives, the concept of classic Robocop as a walking tank is in itself obsolete. With this sad closure to a once remarkably original franchise, perhaps the new reboot in 2014 would be a much welcome revival of the concept.

"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.

gun play galore, killer laser beams, explosions, bustin' glass, back stabbing, martial arts, psychotic killers and this all happens in the "safest place on earth to live"? Remind me never to vacation in Delta City!

Sounds like something right out of Hollywood right? Well that's almost correct, try Hollywood North.

I'm speaking of the new mini series Robocop: Prime Directives made by Julian Grant and written by Brad Abraham and Joseph O'Brien.

I had the pleasure and privilege to attend the theatrical showing of the entire series on Sunday afternoon and it was time well spent. Julian Grant was there to introduce the film and spoke in between chapters, he seems very proud of the work him and his crew accomplished and he has every reason to be. Along with Grant, some of the other cast and crew were on hand to watch it with us as well, writers Brad and Joeseph, RoboCop himself Page Fletcher, along with Maurice Dean Wint as John Cable and actress Leslie Coles as Ashley St. John-Smythe the MediaNet anchor.

The series has it all, action, drama, a bit of horror and the outrageous humour that was born with the original. And I mean outrageous, some of it had the audience roaring.

The story is very well written IMO. Joe and Brad put some more human emotion into RoboCop that I quite liked, it makes you really feel for the character. There are times when I just wanted someone to give the guy a hug and tell him that "it's okay". At the same time, RoboCop is still the strict enforcer of the law and at times damn right mean. There is at least one shocking scene when Robo gets carried away and does something that I am sure he was not programmed for, I'll just leave it at that for fear of spoiling. There is all kinds of deceit going on, you don't know who will end up good or bad, who's going to live through the 4 parts, who's not. The plot line really makes you want to keep watching. I feel sorry for the folks that have to watch it over 4 days, I had to know what was going to happen next right then and there.

The special effects were well done, you don't feel like you are watching some cheap quickly shot B-movie. I'm not sure what the budget was but it looks big. RoboCop looks used and abused and it goes well with the storyline because they mention that many of his parts are outdated and not even produced anymore, it's 10 years after the first movie. Plus he just plain old takes a real beating in the movie!

The shoot was mammoth from what we were told, 88 days if I recall correctly. Folks this is a big project that these people put a lot of time and effort into and I'm sure many personal sacrifices were made. You can tell that the people involved were fans of RoboCop as they stay true to the feel of the original movie. If you have any reservations about this show, try and dispose of them, there is really no need for them. Try going into viewing this series in a positive frame of mind, it's *GOOD*.

Congrats and best of luck to all who worked on the series!

Ed

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.

You've not seen much worse than this! The RoboCop franchise once held so much promise, so much potential. It quickly disintegrated into cheap kiddie garbage.

The first RoboCop movie was awesome and is no doubt a cult classic. Almost immediately this was followed by a crudely animated cartoon show in 1988 and then, RoboCop 2, the under-rated sequel was totally misunderstood on release but by the time RoboCop 3 came out Orion Pictures had long gone out of business and it was unceremoniously dumped into cinemas without any kind of ad campaign or publicity. Quite appropriate too as it's a moronic pile of crap aimed at the kids.

And it got worse after that! An uber-cheap, live-action TV-series came and went within a single season and yet another animated show 1998 (selling RoboCop to the kids is like making Bratz dolls based on House of 1000 Corpses!) and one of the worst video-games ever in 2003. If you think this franchise couldn't get any worse wait until you get a load of Prime Directives. It stomps what's left of Robo right into the maggot-infested mud.

The story is hardly worth mentioning but if you're that interested it involves Robo feeling old and obsolete, Delta City politics (now located in Canada, a poor substitute for the real Detroit) and some crazed employee at OCP (the company went out of business in RoboCop 3!) trying to take over with his ultimate doomsday device. Robo's kid is now a fully-grown exec and his ex-partner (a man with a very, very dodgy moustache) has been killed and made into a new RoboCop. They drag this crap out over 375 minutes and you feel every precious second of it.

I could forgive the cheapness if the makers were enthusiastic or spirited or if the actors weren't so bored they are about to keel over and die. The Robo suits look terrible and could fall apart at any minute. The nobody playing him makes Robert John Burke's performance in RoboCop 3 look Oscar-worthy. Instead of striding with a heaving titanium chest he kind of stumbles and bumbles like an old man without a zimmer-frame and has as much trouble ascending stairs as ED-209 did descending them. It's as if he was mimicking C-3PO.

Say what you want about the declining quality of the films. At least they all had great music. Prime Directives has noise that is painful to the ears and lethal to the soul and mind. Goddamn, I want to erase this horrid mini-series from my memory but I can't. I need a shrink!

This junk should be scrapped and left to rust. Not even the most dedicated and forgiving RoboCop fan should suffer this guff. Wise people such as myself will realise this has as much to do with the TRUE RoboCop as Supergran does with Clark Kent.