RoboCop: Prime Directives

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.

"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

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.

This has got stuff going for it. It ignores the two sequels, and uses the Verhoeven movie as the basis(it, in fact, appears to be in love with it, and uses it wherever possible, most noticeably in the spoken lines), that proves they had the right idea. The satire is also quite present(albeit it tries too hard, worst in the last credits, where it could not possibly be more obvious that they're talking directly to the audience, not to mention how it often underestimates their smarts, and spells it out, same as in the second flick). Moreover, there are plenty of gunfights, as well as some martial arts and car-chases(not all of these are fantastic, if they tend to stay above the level of passable). Each episode seems to start with a bang(there are those that would call them grabs for attention). On paper, this sounds an awful lot better than it is, which is not at all to say that it is all poor. It has several scattered things wrong with it, that unfortunately add together and make the whole less than excellent. For example, the plot is good, and remains so through the mini, but there are perhaps a subplot or a couple over the amount there should be, and not everything pays off(a shame, considering the concepts they at least begin to cover). The pacing can be uneven. While there among the characters are truly interesting ones, others are caricatures, and they get considerable screen time. I will say that this keeps getting even better and bigger, without losing anything, throughout, I didn't think they'd be able to top themselves, however, they went and did just that. The very ending, though parts formulaic and tough to swallow, had something great and well-thought out, in my opinion. The performances are so-so(I personally got a kick out of getting to see Geraint Wyn Davies again), and this is not devoid of screamy acting. This does hold a number of *really* awesome moments. There is unintentionally silly material herein. This is exciting sometimes, and certainly had me thrilled, although not constantly. Why do people continue to use small arms fire against RoboCop, and when will they realize it is utterly and completely ineffective? They cover up the limitations and constraints reasonably. There are repetitive actions(get used to seeing a certain individual storm out with determination). The effects are well-done, meanwhile, no one is going to be fooled and not be able to figure out what's CGI and what isn't. The music is... well, let me put it this way, either they saw the title role as a bit of a cowboy, or the composer is big on Ennio Morricone(hey, who could blame them?). Obviously I hope it's the former, but it didn't always seem staged or filmed to fit that. There are marvelous developments and situations found in this. The writing is a mixed bag, both dialog and story. There is violence, and it could be called excessive, in tone and volume. This I would say is genuinely disturbing a handful times, whether or not that is positive is up to the viewer. I recommend this series to any fan of the first of the cinema-releases, and/or of the iron-clad law-man... be aware that there are areas of this that are going to underwhelm; if you can stand those, you're in for multiple cool, fun sequences and not half bad science fiction. 5/10