Hey there gang, today we have my
first double feature review; Machete Kills and Robocop (the remake not the
classic). I had intended this to be a fun, ‘let’s review bad movies while
drinking’ post. Instead I got, the liquor was bad and I could sit through one
and a half of those movies. So let’s begin!
Machete Kills, what can I say
about you that hasn’t been already said? Probably nothing but let’s give it a
go. I will not attempt to explain what the movie is about, if you expect a
serious story, skip to the next movie and save an hour and half of your life.
In fact, do so anyways, trust me on this one. As usual we get a fake trailer in
the opening this purposefully bad movie, usually these are hilarious and awesome
too watch. The first Machete trailer was
gold and Hobo with a Shotgun is a classic, Machete Kills in space? Not so much,
it’s a parody of a parody. It’s not fun, it’s just dull, on the Brightside it’s
the fair warning of what’s to come, so you can just turn off the movie before
it really starts. Yay!
The movie begins as typical as
possible, with Machete and his partner stopping some corrupt soldiers from
selling stolen weapons. If you’re still watching this movie, you will instantly
see that all the joy from the original has already been sucked out. Alba and
Trejo strain to maintain enthusiasm that is just nowhere to be found. “Fuck it, let’s move ahead, maybe it’ll get
better. Carlos Estves will be gold” I thought to myself. When good old Charlie does
show up onscreen all I could think was, “Why is Charlie Sheen trying to do an
impression of his father?” and then I thought, “God Martin Sheen did not pass
along much of his acting talent did he?”
This thought repeats itself every single time Charlie Sheen appears on
screen, gone is that ‘WINNING’ attitude, all we are left with is a husk of a
clown. A sad, sad clown.
Then the movie jumps to a beauty
pageant where we are introduced to Amber Heard’s character, who doesn’t
actually get a name, she gets a title and a job. Beauty Queen and CIA agent. Oh
what fun, we might get an amusing examination of women’s roles in film with
satire, nope, que the porno music! Does this porno music add anything? No, it
is not bad funny, it is not well made (hell 70s porno music was more eloquent).
All it does is remind you that this film is made by hokey gags not fit for Mad
TV. This entire section, serves to outline how characters are treated in this
film. Unlike in the first Machete, where the characters were boiled down to
their most extreme and insanely fun. The second one, boils all of the
characters too bad gags. Sofia Vergara’s character, is not a character, it’s a
composite of every bad “woman, fucked over by men” trope ever put to film. All
Rodriguez did too add flavor, was add on a machine gun brazier and the dick
pistol from, From Dusk till Dawn. Oddly enough, it seems as though Rodriguez
noticed this flaw in his film and decided to add a little serious comedy with
Bichir’s character, a crazy CIA/Drug Lord gone Castro. Except, he goes so
overboard, that the character just drains the fun from the screen, every time
he pops into frame. By this point I was already busy finishing my drink while
chit chatting on Facebook about how the Community episode was.
There was one bright, albeit
wasted performance, Walton Goggins. He plays El Chameleon, the only character
name aside from Machete I could remember. Walton Goggin’s brings the exact air
of levity that this film requires. He, genuinely understands his role and how to
make it work. It’s mix of Clint Eastwood and Tarantino, if that makes sense.
Sadly he’s onscreen for less than five minutes and then we occasionally hear
him doing voice overs for lesser actors. Hell, this character was essentially
created to jam in cameos by the look of it. He hired Lady Gaga to be, Lady
Gaga. Why Robert, why? She steals time from everyone else and is somehow devoid
of any stage presence. Then again it’s not like there is much to Gooding Jr.
and Banderas’ performances. They just show up, say something wacky and go away.
What a waste.
Further hampering the film is its
neutered style. The nudity, the gore, the bravado, it’s all stripped of the
glee and merriment we had from the first. In place of nostalgic nudity we get
titillation, which would be fine, but it’s ham-fisted in a way that only a
fourteen year old boy could make it. The gore, in place of cheesy but fun
looking effects, we are treated to CGI blood and dismemberment that looks like
it was made by someone who just learned how to use Adobe. The effects are
layered onto one another, using no blending, leaving all the scenes looking like
a grade school collage. It’s not endearing, it’s distracting. The bravado and
fun of the first one, is forced onto screen by a script and direction that is
so overly specific that it leaves no room for fun and creativity. Hell even the
guys at Asylum can write better shit than this.
At the end of this day, this film
(more of a turd sandwhich really) suffers from Rodriguez drinking too much of
his own Kool Aid. The characters are poorly thought out, the story simply drags
on and on, while the actors try so damn hard to be camp that they veer off into
Nic Cage territory, only they don’t have Cage to guide them. You will be
looking at your watch after thirty minutes, if not sooner. By the 86 minute mark, I gave up. This movie
was so bad that, it is only the second film I have had to quit (and I watched
the piece of shit Hitman movie all the way through, it was as painful as it
sounds). By the end, this film left me with three thoughts. Firstly, I miss the
old, EL Mariachi Rodriguez. The one who wanted to make good fucking movies,
rather than simply top the last one. Secondly, Rodriguez should not be allowed
to work with Alexa Vega, it`s creepy (she was the daughter in Spy Kids).
Lastly, this made me have a sinking feeling that maybe, Sin City will not be as
awesome as it looks. Lord Jebas, may you guide Rodriguez back into the light.
Anyways, now that torture is over, let`s move onto something less painful.
Next up we have Robocop. You know
the story, it`s an age old one. A good cop with a heart of gold, takes on
corruption and crime, gets killed and then is turned into an unflinching
killing machine who finds his soul. It’s a timeless tale really. Too be
entirely honest, I had extremely mixed feeling going into this. On one hand, it
seemed like a desecration of something holy. A classic piece of my childhood,
one of my first film loves (my parents thought it was fine for me to watch this
as a six year old, boy were they right!). On the other hand, the remake was
handed off to Jose Padhilla, the guy who made Elite Squad 1 and 2 (if you haven’t
seen these films, stop reading this, go watch them and then comeback, I’ll just
watch some cat videos on YouTube while I wait). This guy knows action and he
knows how to balance it with a story you can invest your heart into.
The film begins of promisingly as
we are introduced to the world by Samuel L Jackson. Having Sam Jackson in your
movie is never a bad thing, but if Oldboy taught me anything, it is that the
Jackson factor can be highly deceiving. In this case, though it does a fairly
bang on job at giving you a layout of what to expect from the film, a lot of
fluffy talk about the ills of society, wrapped up in a flashy package brought
to you by Hollywood. It screams generic from the very onset. From the poorly
handled social politics about today, to the cool, but woefully mis-imagined
technology of the near future.
The changes made to the story
seem very tacked on, as if they couldn’t figure out how to make it feel fresh.
In its two hour span, the film drags out what was the opening forty minutes or
so of the original. The nuance of Padhilla’s previous films is gone, instead we
are left with a by committee affair. Badass cop with a justice boner? Check.
Minority sidekick? Check. A shady corporation filled with characterless drones?
Check. A totally hot wife, who cries and whines a lot? Check. Meaningless winks
at the superior original? You better believe it. A vague moral message, that
isn’t well thought out? You bet your ass!
This vague moral message of
corporate greed, versus moral righteousness that is portrayed in the film is
made unnecessarily complex. Where is in the first, these drones were a new
thing and the corporation just needed to test it, this new version decides to
bring in politics. It’s immoral, it’s untested, it’s un-American for a robot to
kill a man, when a person will kill just fine. It’s unnecessarily complex.
Omincorp, could have just said, ‘fuck the states, let’s sell these cop drones
to every country that doesn’t have a law against it’, problem solved, movie
over. Think about it, China, North Korea and Russia would’ve bought it no
questions asked. Also, the writers seem too think that they are writing this
film for children. They write on screen the name of every location, even if the
building or newspaper on screen already says the location. Example, every time
the movie goes to Omnicorp’s headquarters, there is a prompt on screen telling
you “Omnicorp’s Headquarter”, its ridiculously unnecessary, considering the
building in the shot has Omincorp’s scrawled all over it in big bold letters.
This isn’t to say that the story
isn’t without its merits though. It a few vague flourishes of greatness, the
movie does attempt to tackle some good questions. How would Robocop deal with
his family moving on? Whereas the first movie doesn’t dwell on it too much, the
remake does make a valiant attempt at addressing this, it’s too bad that this
is drowned out by Ms (Mrs?) Murphy’s overwrought hysterics. As well, the
overall training is handled well, as is the whole mental stability thing. Like
the family affair, the mental stability is mostly alluded to in the original,
where as in the remake, it is worked into the plot quite nicely. The film is a
mix of some neat ideas, with shoddy execution, that mental stability everyone
is so concerned with? Well Alex Murphy does not seem all that mentally stable,
unless you think Harry Calhoon was a stable member of society.
I’ll say this right out of the
gate, the only character worth a damn, is Gary Oldman’s, Dr. Norton. He’s
basically Oldman playing Commisioner Gordon as if he were a scientist. It’s a
solid performance with nuance and emotion, only hampered by a script that puts
him into brain numbing situations. Beyond that, the characters are mostly
cardboard cutouts. Kinneman’s Murphy is a husk of Weller’s Murphy. Whereas
Weller was able to juggle, the robotic and human side of his character,
Kinneman seems flat. Now this might have something to do with the script. In
the original, Murphy is a ray of sunshine. He looks forward to his day, to
helping make the city better, a different flavour to the brooding action heroes
and the comedic heroes of the 80s. He is a cop who has a really shitty day. In
the remake, they throw all of that out and make him a stock action hero. A
rough and tumble family man, with a TUDE! This causes problems with the whole,
the experimental cop must be stable thing. Then we have Valon, in the original
he’s is fun. He is a villain that you enjoy watching and you enjoy watching his
death even more. Kurtwood Smith brought charisma and bravura too the role. The
guy who plays Valon this time, is generic. Put him in a line up with his
henchmen and you won’t be able to tell the difference. Hell, remove him from
the film and you would barely notice. Lastly we have, Lewis. In the original,
Lewis, played by Nancy Allen was the badass. Murphy could have just as easily
been her sidekick and her being a woman, brought a breath of fresh air to an
overly macho film. In the remake, we have a wasted Michael K Williams. Where,
Lewis was useful in the original, in the remake, Lewis doesn’t do much. He
could be replaced by any old cop. Essentially, everyone but Oldman is wasted.
Lastly I’d like to touch on the
technical aspects of the film. This is the only part of the film that truly
crashes into a wall and explodes into a ball of fiery shit. The art design and special effects, seem
dated. It brings nothing new to the table. At least Transformers made you pause
and look at it for a moment, even if you thought it looked horrible. In Robocop
2014 all the deisgns and effects look drab and uninspired, like the left over
from Value Village. Then we have the sound, boy is it a clunker. Rarely do I
say anything about this technical aspect, but here it warrants a bashing. Like
the effects and art design, it’s very Value Village. A Frankenstien of stolen
effects that don’t play nice with one another. The films solution? Make it so
loud, so that the audience can’t tell it’s shit. This movie shows us why you
can’t apply the wall of sound philosophy to a film’s special effects.
At the end of the day, this is
not the catastrophic disaster that I had originally envisaged. It’s mostly a
quiet wet fart. It’ll be forgotten before you know it. Which is kind of a shame,
I think I would’ve preferred a train wreck. At least that, I would remember in
a week.
So, there you have it, my double
bill. Watching these two films back too back, was most definitely not worth my
time and it surely is not worth yours. Go watch The Raid 2 instead, you can
thank me later.
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