2014 Movie Preview: #24 - Robocop

Release date: February 12

Plot summary: In "RoboCop," the year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Their drones are winning American wars around the globe and now they want to bring this technology to the home front. Alex Murphy (Kinnaman) is a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit. After he is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp utilizes their remarkable science of robotics to save Alex's life. He returns to the streets of his beloved city with amazing new abilities, but with issues a regular man has never had to face before.

My take: The first trailer for this reboot left me believing that this would be a case of another remake tarnishing the good name of the original. The second trailer that was released, however, has given me pause. Given the decent supporting cast, I have belief that this still can work. At the very least it can't be any worse than the Total Recall trailer. Let's just hope they maintain the social commentary that made the original so memorable and not have this be a generic action flick with endless explosions.

Rescuing Heroes?

Could Heroes actually be getting a relaunch just three years after its cancellation? If reports are true, it sounds like this show, like so many comic book superheroes, may be coming back from the dead. Here's the report from TVLine:

Save the cheerleader, launch a new programming initiative?

MSN, which is making a big push into original programming via Xbox, is in talks to revive NBC’s superhero drama Heroes, TVLine has learned exclusively.

Details remain sketchy, but sources confirm that MSN is interested in relaunching the once red-hot NBC Universal franchise with new stories and heroes, while mixing in cameos from the original series’ cast (schedules and interest permitting). The talks are said to be in the preliminary stages.

In February, MSN hired former NBC development executive Jada Miranda to oversee production of its fledgling Xbox entertainment studio under ex-CBS president Nancy Tellem (who came on board last fall).

Heroes‘ four-season run on NBC ended in February 2010.

RBR: The Amazing Spider-Man

The fact that I waited until home video to watch this movie shows you the lack of urgency I had in seeing a reboot of this franchise. Despite having the story told to us a mere 10 years earlier, we once again sit through the origins of young Peter Parker getting bit by a spider and losing his uncle leading to his transformation into Spider-Man. This time around he's played by Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) who gives us a more rebellious than nerdy take on the character. One deviation from the previous origin story is that this one focuses on Peter's romance with Gwen Stacy. She's played by the always charming Emma Stone. Both she and Garfield give good performances although I don't necessary buy them as high schoolers. The biggest problem for me is that my familiarity with the story left me focusing on smaller details that irked me. For instance, the film takes place in New York, yet you would think that this is some post-apocalyptic version of the city considering how few people we actually see in the city outside of the primary characters. I also noticed the financial cheats the movie takes by having so much of it filmed in the shadows. You don't need a whole lot of CGI detail when everything is pitch black. Apparently all of the money was spent on the cast and it was not money well spent. You get distinguished actors like Sally Field and Martin Sheen to star as Peter's aunt and uncle and then waste them. Sheen unsurprisingly is killed off early on and Field more surprisingly disappears halfway through the film only to make a token appearance near the end. Director Marc Webb attempts to bring some gravitas to the franchise with his indie filmmaking style, but frankly it just wasn't needed. Flaws aside, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films actually felt like a comic book come to life. For all the realism that this adaptation offers, it equally saps the fun out of the story. This is a wholly unnecessary film (except for the people at Sony who needed to make it in order to prevent the rights from going over to Disney/Marvel) that doesn't need to be seem. It's harmless enough as a rental, but not a film that you need to go out of your way to see. Rating: ** 1/2

Amazing replace

With Comic-con this week, expect to see a lot of trailers/previews for stuff coming out next week. This time, it's our first look at Marvel's attempt to reboot the Spiderman franchise with Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) taking over as Peter Parker.