2/28/15 (Part One): The Tin Man Rides Into the Sunset

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'90s films, 1990s films, action films, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Locke, CCH Pounder, cinema, cyborgs, Daniel von Bargen, Delta City, Detroit, dystopian future, evil corporations, Felton Perry, film reviews, films, franchises, Fred Dekker, Jill Hennessy, John Castle, Judson Vaughn, Mad Max, Mako, man vs machine, mercenaries, Movies, Nancy Allen, near future, Night of the Creeps, OCP, Officer Lewis, Officer Murphy, Peter Weller, rebels, Remy Ryan, Rip Torn, Robert Burke, Robert DoQui, RoboCop, RoboCop 3, sci-fi, sequels, set in Detroit, Shane Black, Stephen Root, street gangs, The Monster Squad, writer-director

Sometimes, a film can hit just about all its marks and still be disappointing: take Fred Dekker’s RoboCop 3 (1993), for example. Here’s a movie where expectations are already set fairly low (this is the third one, after all, and the first without Peter Weller behind the helmet), yet there’s every possibility to be not only pleasantly surprised but genuinely blown away…after all, Dekker is the unmitigated genius behind two of the greatest genre films of all time, Night of the Creeps (1986) and The Monster Squad (1987). In his more than capable hands, RoboCop 3 could have been the caustically funny, surprising joy that RoboCop 2 (1990) should have been. Instead, the film ends up being a thoroughly competent, middle-of-the-road sci-fi action film with only hints of Dekker’s demented genius. An auteur like Dekker reduced to the role of hired gun? Say it ain’t so, Joe!

The film kicks off with a pretty familiar scenario: the loathsome OCP is still trying to build their dream project, Delta City, over the charred bones and lower-class citizens of near-future Detroit. As in the previous RoboCop films, Detroit is still a war-zone: this time around, the prime offenders are a mob of stereotypical “punk” marauders dubbed The Splatterpunks, who seem to delight in setting any and everything ablaze with Molotov cocktails. In a telling development, OCP is taken over by the Japanese mega-conglomerate, Kanemitsu Corporation, making Detroit the first U.S. city to come under foreign rule. The new president, the titular Kanemitsu (Mako), is a no-nonsense businessman who’s tired of OCP continually missing its deadlines for breaking ground on Delta City.

In order to help along the process of claiming property that the residents don’t want to part with, OCP employs a collection of mercenaries known as Urban Rehabilitation Officers (Rehabs, for short). The Rehabs are, ostensibly, being used to fight the rising crime wave: in reality, they’re being used to forcibly remove the residents of the various slums that OCP wants to demolish. The residents are moved to “refugee camps” where they promptly seem to drop off the grid: the ultimate case of the “haves” doing away with the “have-nots.”

Our intrepid heroes, Officer Murphy (now played by Robert Burke, who looks a little like Weller, if you squint) and Officer Lewis (Nancy Allen) get caught up in the struggle when a group of homeless revolutionaries, led by scrappy Bertha (CCH Pounder) and Nikko (Remy Ryan), a pint-sized hacker who’s ably to handily turn lethal ED-209s into loyal “puppies” with the push of a button, butt heads with the Rehab officers, led by the odious Commander McDaggett (John Castle). In the ensuing chaos, Officer Lewis is killed (RoboCop’s sad “Officer down” line is just as ludicrous on paper as it is in the film) and Murphy is branded a murderous renegade. As OCP and the Kanemitsu Corporation fill the airwaves with bogus stories about RoboCop’s villainy, OCP’s CEO (Rip Torn) and Kanemitsu work behind the scenes to eliminate the cyborg avenger and clear the last roadblock to the long-delayed Delta City. To this end, Kanemitsu unleashes his own cyborg, a lethal-killing machine known as Otomo (Bruce Locke). Will RoboCop and the revolutionaries be able to stop OCP and the Rehabs once and for all or does the dawn of Delta City begin now?

While the first film was a fairly streamlined, subtly ironic sci-fi action film, ala Mad Max (1979), the sequel employed the “bigger is better” aesthetic, pumping up the action scenes while letting some air out of the more subversive ideas. In the process, RoboCop 2 became a much sillier, louder and goofier film, albeit one with enough inherent parallels to the original to serve as a more than suitable follow-up. RoboCop 3, by contrast, is the most cartoonish of the three films, as well as the first of them to earn a PG13 rating: as expected, this means that the film is exponentially less gritty and gorier, although the body count is still exceptionally high…in this case, it just means that hordes of baddies “fall down,” ala old Westerns, rather than explode in red sprays of arterial fluid.

By itself, this isn’t really a problem: the second film was, in reality, only a few small steps removed from a complete cartoon and (brain surgery scene notwithstanding) had about as much impact. The bigger issue comes from the fact that the whole film is obviously pitched at much younger audiences: all of the issues are very black-and-white and the very character of Nikko feels like nothing more than an attempt to insert a pre-teen hero into the mix. Compared to the foul-mouthed urchins in RoboCop 2, Nikko is Little Orphan Annie and the whole thing has a trite feel that definitely feels aimed at the lowest common denominator.

Acting-wise, RoboCop 3 is extremely broad, although the style does tend to work, since the film is inherently broad and silly. Burke does a suitable job as Weller’s replacement, although he doesn’t sound anything like our original Officer Murphy. We get a few “regulars” here, such as Nancy Allen, Felton Perry and Robert DoQui, although they’re pretty much relegated to the background for the majority of the film, allowing newcomers like Ryan, Pounder and Stephen Root (always a joy to see) to step up to the plate. For his part, Rip Torn turns in the kind of performance that he’s been autopiloting for way too long, although his smug bureaucrat fits the film’s heart-on-sleeve politics like a glove.

More than anything, I’m disappointed that so little of Dekker actually shows through in the final product. Short of a few scattered scenes and details (the OCP exec jumping out of a window while his wife harangues him on the phone, RoboCop driving the blazing, Pepto-pink pimp-mobile around like it was a tank) that are explicitly reminiscent of Dekker’s tongue-in-cheek approach, the film is depressingly generic and middle-of-the-road. It’s always bummed me out that Dekker only directed three films in his entire career and this was one of them: it’s equivalent to Francis Ford Coppola’s entire filmography consisting of The Godfather (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Jack (1996). At the very least, Dekker has recently been rumored to be involved in Shane Black’s new Predator reboot: fingers crossed that this translates into him directing the film, although a Dekker script is (usually) a thing of beauty, so that’d be fine, too.

Ultimately, RoboCop 3 is not a terrible film: in many ways, it’s no worse (or better) than a hundred other direct-to-video, ’90s era “gems.” While the film is competently done, however, it also possesses no real sense of identity or even much in the way of distinguishing features: it just “is,” for better or worse. Since the third entry seemed to effectively nail the coffin lid shut (at least until the recent reboot), it’s fair to say that our heroic man of steel had already passed his expiration date by this point, a mere six years after he debuted. Quite the pity, really: with Fred Dekker writing and directing, RoboCop 3 should have been one of the most unforgettable franchise entries ever. Instead, the film is so generic as to be completely forgettable: now that’s irony that’s right up Fred Dekker’s twisted little alley.

 

1/23/14: To Boldly Go…Home

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1980's, action-comedies, Chekov, cinema, Enterprise, films, franchises, Kirk, Leonard Nimoy, McCoy, Movies, San Francisco, sci-fi, Scotty, sequel, space operas, Spock, Star Trek, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Wars, Sulu, time travel, Uhura, whales, William Shatner

As a child, I was a huge Star Wars fanatic: I must have had every action figure, vehicle, play-set and pajama-set in the history of the original trilogy. Star Trek, on the other hand, wasn’t quite my thing. I’m not sure if it had more to do with the ration of laser-blasts to philosophical discussions or if I was just more partial to Han Solo than Capt. Kirk. Whatever the reason, I just never felt a big connection to the Enterprise and its crew when I was younger.

As I got older, however, I found my alliances shifting. The Star Wars films lost some of their original luster, particularly once the prequels were tossed into the mix. Star Trek, on the other hand, was finally beginning to appeal to me. I ended up falling in love with the original series (I can still watch those episodes any time: it’s cinematic comfort food like mashed potatoes and meatloaf, as far as I’m concerned) and became a fan of The Next Generation, although I’ve never seen any of the other . I also began to really pay attention to the Trek films: I’d already seen many of them since my family was always big on new releases and action/adventure films but I’d never really paid attention.

Currently, my admiration for the two series still tends to lean towards Star Trek, although I definitely wouldn’t consider myself a hardcore fan of either. I think that Star Trek has tended to stick with me longer because the social problems and philosophical issues raised seem to have more real-world applications than the space operatics of Star Wars. At any rate, I find that some time has passed since I saw either a Star Trek or Star Wars film. When it came time to choose last Thursday’s entertainment, my lovely wife suggested Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (her personal favorite in the series) and this seemed like a perfect time to get reacquainted with the series.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is certainly an odd Star Trek film but I think that’s actually one of its biggest benefits. Coming right after the triple punch of The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home is a much lighter affair, more comedy and satire than pulse-pounding space shoot-em-up. This also makes it an easy film to mock, particularly when we get to elements like Spock using the Vulcan nerve pinch on a mohawk-bedecked “punk rocker” on a bus or Kirk’s constant swearing (this affectation, however, is one of my favorites in the film, particularly when he responds back to a rude motorist with the classic retort, “Double-dumbass to you!”

Story-wise, The Voyage Home takes place immediately after The Search for Spock ended. Spock is once again alive and with the crew, the crew is on the run from the Federation in a stolen Klingon warbird (dubbed the HMS Bounty, in a particularly nifty touch) and some strange probe is draining the energy from every vessel and planet it comes near. When it begins to drain Earth, the renegade crew put their heads together and realize that the strange signal emanating from the probe is a whale song. Where to find a whale to respond to the probe since they’ve been extinct for hundreds of years by that point? Why, the past of course: San Francisco in 1986, to be exact. The crew heads to the past, endures the typical fish-out-of-water shenanigans that we’d expect (including the aforementioned bus antics and a gloriously goofy sequence where Spock dives into a whale tank to commune with the big lugs) and, of course, ends up saving the day.

Since The Voyage Home isn’t played strictly seriously, it may seem easy to discount it, especially when compared to earlier fare like The Wrath of Khan. Despite a few particularly dodgy effects moments (especially the dated time-travel effects), a few silly moments (Spock’s IQ test scene is really silly, one short step from being eye-rolling) and a distinct lack of action (there’s some minor action sequences at the beginning and a rather quickly resolved one at the end), however, the film actually holds up pretty well. Leonard Nimoy wrote and directed the film and there’s a general sense of amiability that permeates everything: at no point do any of the actors look like they’re having anything less than a great time. Shatner, in particular, is in fine, mischievous form and gets a few choice lines to rattle off.

As a rule, the effects are pretty simple and clean (aside from the ridiculous time travel scene): I bet The Voyage Home must have looked pretty good in theaters on opening weekend. I was initially concerned that the film would lose its footing completely once the crew made it to Earth but Nimoy keeps a pretty consistent visual thread running through the film, making the Earth scenes no less (but certainly no more) visually arresting than what’s happening in space. Add in a pretty rousing finale, with a truly great final scene, and you have one pretty decent film. Certainly nothing ground-breaking (or even something to make people forget the three films that came before) but Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is consistently entertaining and fun: that’s certainly more than I can say for Attack of the Clones.