Movie Critics Thread

[ILikeSoundwave]

Loved Guardians of the Galaxy! Definitely my favorite movie this year, Go see it immediately if you haven't already!

[jazzcomp]

Looks like I have to see GOTG.

[morg176]

Just saw gotg and I thought it was a good movie.
If you havent seen it I would recommend it .

It must be the teacher in me but most of what I could hear was the inane conversation of 2 teenage girls in the row behind me, went on and on, im not sure they new there was a f movie on ....sigh

Good movie go see it

[GoktimusPrime]

Hello.

I haven't seen Guardians of the Galaxy yet. I'd really love it if people refrained from putting visual spoilers in their board signatures (same would be good for any movie, I suppose). Thaaaanks.

[5FDP]

Looks like I have to see GOTG.

After reading all these positive comments I'm thinking the same

[Gutsman Heavy]

After reading all these positive comments I'm thinking the same

Definitely see it. I thought it was great, and this is coming from someone who is very sick of the marvel formula. Avengers was only good the first time, IM3 & Thor 2 sucked, but this is something special. James Gunn is quite the talent, and GotG genuinely feels like one of his movies.

Drax was the real surprise of this movie, I expected nothing and got possibly the best character in the movie. The only real downside is Gamora, bland and uninteresting.

[GoktimusPrime]

Just watched the new Robocop movie. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen it, and this is a comparative review with the original 1987 Verhoeven film.






I liked the new Robocop. It's certainly a different take from the original, but it still keeps the core story themes in tact; corruption, dystopia, media, social division, authoritarianism, personal identity, privatised corporate capitalism etc. The deliberately over the top violence is gone, and both versions portray Robocop as a Christlike messiah figure. The method of execution has changed ... the original is arguably more Christlike, as Murphy was directly executed face-to-face and also died slowly and painfully. The walking on water symbolism was essentially removed though. We do see that scene where Robocop is running through the water filled rice-paddy in China, which feels like a nod to the water-walking scene at the steel mill in the original, but its place in the story just removed the religious symbolism. On the other hand, Murphy's resting station has him strapped upright with his wrists and ankles bound, which is arguably somewhat reminiscent of a crucifix. The station can also pivot 90 degrees which then resembles Christ's tomb.

But the biggest deviation from the original seems to have been in the way that they portrayed Murphy's family (actually including them in the story) and creator (Dennett Norton has a conscience, Bob Morton didn't). The new version also becomes more political as well, which served well in demonstrating how the media and public perception can be used to affect politics (exposing democracy's greatest weakness). The new version also expands the social criticism on an international level (as seen in the opening scene), which the original didn't.

Having said that, the original did a better job in focusing on some of the local domestic/local issues, namely the rampant crime that was plaguing Detroit. In the new version, we hear about the high crime rate, but we don't really see it as much. But I think that this was a result of the new story's focus shifting more towards corruption. The original version showed us plenty of corporate corruption, but the new version also gave us corruption within the police department going as high up as the chief. In the original film, the corruption of the police department was a result of its privatised ownership by OCP, whereas the new version shows corruption coming from within the DPD itself.

I would have liked to have seen more scenes of crimes in progress (and Robocop stopping these crimes!), but I think that this took a backseat to showcasing a wider level of corruption. Also, while the old Robocop was a reactive crime-stopper, the new Robocop is a more proactive crime preventer; using his uploaded database and satellite uplink to track down and arrest wanted felons rather than patrolling around stopping crimes in progress.

I personally prefer the ending in the original too, but I can see why they changed it in the new version. The new one is trying to show Alex's human spirit fighting his mechanical nature -- to show that he is human. In the original, Murphy tried to fight his programming, but couldn't succeed. He was only able to shoot Jones after the OCP President sacked him ("Dick, you're fired!"), whereas in the new movie, Murphy was able to triumph over the machine in him (and we did see him previously overriding his programmed protocols when he began investigating his own murder). But I do like how the new ending shows Murphy being reunited with his family and OCP being faced with accountability, neither of which ever happened in the original. But I can see that some people might prefer the original's more dystopic ending; and I still really do like how the original shows Murphy's final reclamation of his humanity in its last line ("Great shooting son, what's your name?" / "Murphy").

I think that both versions have their strengths; they both explore the same core themes but in different ways.

[Trent]

I read the first few lines of your review Gok (Haven't seen it yet) but stopped when I got to:

"The deliberately over the top violence is gone"

Boo! That's what makes a Robocop movie!

[GoktimusPrime]

"The deliberately over the top violence is gone"

Boo! That's what makes a Robocop movie!

It's what I love about Paul Verhoeven's directorial style, which he also used in Starship Troopers. The new Robocop movie does touch more on media and political-military propaganda, which is something that Starship Troopers delves into quite heavily. Starship Troopers is set in the backdrop of Earth as an ultra-nationalistic fascist society, which is something that bubbles under the surface of America in the new Robocop film. It's an interesting metaphor for when patriotism/nationalism can be used as a means of propaganda to influence the way that people think. We see many examples of how nationalism can be used as a tool for brainwashing the masses (Starship Trooper's Federation uniforms being modelled after Nazi uniforms is a deliberate reference to this theme).


"Would you like to know more?"

[Sinnertwin]

I personally prefer the ending in the original too, but I can see why they changed it in the new version. The new one is trying to show Alex's human spirit fighting his mechanical nature -- to show that he is human. In the original, Murphy tried to fight his programming, but couldn't succeed. He was only able to shoot Jones after the OCP President sacked him ("Dick, you're fired!"), whereas in the new movie, Murphy was able to triumph over the machine in him (and we did see him previously overriding his programmed protocols when he began investigating his own murder). But I do like how the new ending shows Murphy being reunited with his family and OCP being faced with accountability, neither of which ever happened in the original. But I can see that some people might prefer the original's more dystopic ending; and I still really do like how the original shows Murphy's final reclamation of his humanity in its last line ("Great shooting son, what's your name?" / "Murphy").

I think that both versions have their strengths; they both explore the same core themes but in different ways.

I'll have to rewatch that scene, but I'm sure that I remember Bruce Wayne firing down on Robocop first? Perhaps this was the override in his programming that he needed to be able to fire back? I'm probably thinking way too much into this anyway

The new version wasn't too bad. It was a lot cleaner than the original (you could literally see crap hitting the screen) & i didn't mind the Nick Fury news pieces, i thought they were very clever. The one thing that i did find lacking was the score. Where was Basil Poliderous' theme? I think i heard brief snippets of it twice in the movie, but instead of that we get some good ol' rock music. They probably weren't able to secure the rights to it.

While i didn't mind the remake & probably will watch it again soon, the 27 year old Verhoeven version absolutely creams it and leaves it for dead.