RoboCop

Today I watched the 2014 remake of RoboCop. From the very beginning, there is a lot of action. A t.v. crew is in Tehran filming a routine search by drones and huge machines in a small village. There are cross cutting shots between the film crew thinking everything is going well and a man in one of the homes strapping himself with bombs and machine guns. It also goes back to a pan of the TV host back in America speaking to one of the generals about how much better this sort of military and police is. Back in the village, the bombers go out and the drones respond. It cuts back to the bombers son, who we see from a dutch angle as if we are following him as he goes after his father. The camera bounces around as if we are with him. Right as the news reporter says, "You'll notice children in the streets as well, this is everyday life happening in perfect harmony-" explosion. Then it becomes not so perfect. Because of the dust from the rubble, there is a lot of low key lighting. There is one scene where we appear to be on top of one of the camera guys cameras as he does a 360 shot of the street. The next scene is sad because a teenage boy runs out the house and a drone sees him. We see through the eyes of the drone as he zooms in and examines the boy and sees he has a pocket knife and labels him a threat and the words ENGAGE appear, and it is cut and we see his mother scream, cut again to the news report where the drone fires in the background. The tv host then cuts the feed. The next interesting scene is when Alex Murphy, the cop who was blown up and died, is turned into "robocop". There is very high key lighting in large rooms in the lab where he is. Alex has no idea that he died and doesn't actually have a body anymore. He goes throughout the factory and the camera is very shaky and it cuts to shots within his new mask as he analyzes things. As he gets outside, there is a really cool shot through his mask where he analyzes the wall he is about to jump. We see the lines marking the height and angle at which he has to jump. They shut him down however and bring him back to the laboratory where they show him what is left of him. This is where I do not think Joel Kinnaman did a very good job of reacting to just having found out he has nothing left except for a left hand, his lungs, heart and his head. I screamed louder than he did when I saw it. I honestly don't even know how he was still alive. You could see the brain and the lungs pumping, his throat pumping. Very intense special effects. Another cool method the director uses is when Alex video chats with his wife. You see her on the big computer screen, him in the little window and reflecting off the screen, and beside the computer, there is a photo of Alex's son. Another awesome scene is when RoboCop is trying to get past these bad guys in a dark tunnel. He is on his silver motorcycle and all you can see is some reflection from the red accents on his armor. When shots are fired, the scene is illuminated because of the shots and you see the light reflect off of RoboCop and his motorcycle. It is almost as if it was black and silver instead of black and white.