This is a remake of the 1987 Robocop movie, starring Peter Weller and Nancy Allen etc, which was a hit back then.
The main cast includes Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson and others. Set in 2028 in a world protected by drones, the policeman Alex Murph played by Joel was a very serious law enforcer who went all out to bring down criminals in society. However, his relentless pursuit of a notorious criminal caused him to be the target of a car bomb and was critically injured. To save his life, his wife signed an agreement to prolong her husband's life through the help of modern technology.
What was shockingly graphic were scenes showing what remained of his organic body which included his head, neck and esophagus, part of the torso including his lungs and heart as well as a palm. The rest of his body was amputated away from his body. The body parts were then fitted onto a robotic body that was intricately connected with his brain such that it functioned almost like a normal human being, except of course with superhuman strength and abilities.
I shan't give the rest of the story away but it was a case of him fighting corruption, even within the police force, and tried to maintain his sanity to get back to his estranged wife and son. Alright, I wouldn't say I was impressed with the movie but once again, Gary Oldman put up an excellent performance. Michael Keaton, who no longer had an ounce of fabric resembling Batman, looked old and loathsome as the unscrupulous CEO of the Omnicorp which manufactured the drones and the Robocop prototype.
Ok, it's time to move on to another movie.
The much anticipated DC comics superhero movie "Man of Steel" produced by the Christopher Nolan of the well-known "Dark Knight Triology" did not live up to my expectations. It spent many years in its conception and casting before the movie was finally made. Heavily shrouded in secrecy and hyped to be a different and darker take as a departure from the earlier movie failure "Superman Returns", there were some hits and as many misses for this latest remake.
Starring Henry Cavill as the new leading man, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and other actors such as Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, this over two hour long movie was so packed in cation in the later part of the movie that it was a blurry mess for me. It was so deja vu watching the movie because the scenes of the city's mass destruction and alien space crafts resembled many recent action packed movies like "Transformers" or that involved alien invasions etc as the Man of Steel battled the evil Zod and his henchmen from Krypton.
The movie deliberately detracted from the comics and earlier movies in some ways in an attempt to inject some freshness into a superhero character that we all know too well and to create some mystery behind the Man of Steel. First of all, there was a radical change in the superhero's outfit to keep in time with the new age and gone was his embarrassing red underwear worn on the outside. They tried hard not to refer to the superhero as Superman and inferred that the famous S insignia was just a symbol of hope.
I have never seen a scruffy, bearded Superman but here he was looking more like the hairy Wolverine than the clean cut Superman that we all know of. The first hour of the movie was spent exploring how the troubled and confused young boy with superpowers tried to cope with his unusual and extraordinary abilities by hiding who he really was from everyone and subsequently was lost and ran from place to place after he failed to save his human father Jonathan Kent from a tornado. He only found his calling after he discovered a Kryptonian spaceship in the arctic, communicated with his birth father Jor-El through a hologram and learnt about his true identity and destiny.
I guess Henry Cavill fits the bill as the darker superhero with a lot of baggage but I am not used to his constant frown on his forehead. I did not like Amy Adams as Lois Lane and felt there was something missing about her. In my mind, Lois Lane is much more feisty than what was portrayed. In fact, I found her annoying as she was superhero's main distraction from saving the world. Never mind if many military men and civilians were killed, saving Lois seemed to be the order of the day when it came to the Man of Steel. Smooching was fine even though there was mass destruction and death around.
Unfortunately, I feel there was so much potential to this movie which was not tapped. For instance, they was a lot of inference to Lex Luthor with his name on buildings but there were no cameos of him or other superheroes like Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern etc from the Justice League, which was a formula that the Marvel Comics used to great success in the other superhero movies involving the Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and so on. There was also no suspense created in crafting a character in the movie as a possible upcoming superhero like Robin in the Dark Knight series.
I guess movie making is getting more and more difficult by the day. When the audience is used to see something in several movies, the formula loses its freshness and appeal. Unless the directors and producers come up with something new, movies with age old formulas become run of the mill and will soon descend into boredom.
Having said that, if they make a sequel, I will still catch it no matter how bad it is. A superhero will always be an extraordinary being with the limitless ability to do what the common lay person cannot do. That in itself, is the allure of a superhero movie.
Today's weather - sunny
I didn't have much high hopes of this movie but after watching it, I was pleasantly impressed. Directed by Christopher Nolan, this is the last of a 3-part trilogy on the DC comic superhero character Batman. The first two movies Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were released in 2005 and 2008 respectively.
Hemmed by a cast which included Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and Batman, Michael Caine as the butler Alfred, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, as well as new characters Selina cum Cat Burglar played by Anne Hathaway, Bane by Tom Hardy, John by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, other cameos included Cillian Murphy and Morgan Freeman. I am happy that this new installment wasn't a disappointment in the making and it was worth the wait for four whole years before it came to the big screen.
I shan't dwell on the storyline but I am very glad that the movie-makers introduced new twists or surprises to an otherwise mundane plot. One of my favourite character actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt really came a long way since his days on the TV series "Third Rock from the Sun". As John Blake, the audience was treated to a surprise at the end when it hinted that he could be the new Robin, who is the other half of the well-known Batman-Robin pairing portrayed in the comics. Interestingly, in one of the scenes, Joseph's police uniform spotted the familiar initial GC on his sleeves, which I suppose stood for Gotham City. Anne provided a different girlish portrayal of the Cat Burglar, which was a fresh take that bore absolutely no resemblance to the classic Cat Woman played by Michelle Pfeiffer in the late 80s. Then there was Tom Hardy, whom I last remembered as one of the characters in the movie "Inception" of recent years. Just take a look at the photos below on how much he bulked up in a matter of months to play the role of Bane. Sadly, he was almost unrecognizable with the mask on this face and there was only one blink and you will missed it scene of his actual face in the entire movie. Such ballooning in body weight must have a toll on a person's health, I guess? What a sacrifice actors have to make!
And yes, I am looking forward to see the new movie "Man of Steel" on the most well-known DC comic superhero Superman in 2013, which is a year away, after watching the short trailer played before the movie started.
