Robocop (1987)

For the foul-mouthed, immature man-child, the obscenity and violence in RoboCop make it a masterpiece. For the rest of us, this dystopian future flick comes up a few rewrites short of a well-oiled machine.

In the not-too-distant future, the city of Detroit is a mess. Things are so bad and the city is so far in debt that it has sold its police forces to a private company, Omni Consumer Products. The firm, however, has plans to ransack and raze Detroit and replace it with a new utopian city. With the crime rate high, OCP develops a robotic law enforcer. The first demonstration fails miserably and a volunteer ends up brutally slain by the machine due to a malfunction. An ambitious developer in the firm uses the incident to greenlight his alternative project line, the RoboCop.

The RoboCop enforcer requires a human touch. In order for the RoboCop to function properly, a human brain is needed for some reason to maintain some kind of system balance. With cops getting killed all over Detroit, OCP has plenty of candidates to choose from.

Enter officer Alex Murphy, a determined cop who values justice and service to the city. While making a surprise raid on a dangerous gang, Murphy is captured and tortuously executed by the thugs and their boss Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith- aka Topher Grace’s dad on That 70’s Show). When brought to the hospital morgue though, Murphy is used as the first active host for RoboCop.

With a simple set of directives in his memory banks, RoboCop does a smash-up job fighting crime in the city. He’s virtually bulletproof, a wicked shot and has amazing strength. Then his human brain begins injecting memories from Murphy’s life into his mind. RoboCop struggles with seeing images and nearly remembering the wife and family he used to have and also has flashes of the goons who killed him.

At this point, the film heads in the wrong direction. Instead of RoboCop seeking an identity for himself aside from the steel and wires of his makeup, he instead makes it his personal mission to hunt down and eliminate Boddicker and his minions. RoboCop hits a few snags along the way as Boddicker is secretly working for OCP by raising crime rates to drive people out of Detroit, thereby bringing OCP’s dream of rebuilding the city all the more closer to fruition. But of course, RoboCop rises above the corporate corruption and upholds the law, seemingly bringing an end to all the bad guys.

After looking into the history of the conception and development of RoboCop, I understand that the filmmakers were looking to include heavy doses of dark cultural satire, but the problem with making fun of the culture of your time is that it rarely ever translates well for future generations. Twenty-one years after its release, RoboCop fails to resonate on a cultural level.

In the past, many books and movies had been made about dystopian societies growing out of extreme liberal social policies so I guess RoboCop is the other end of the spectrum. The 1980’s saw the rise of powerful corporations and there were plenty of people in Hollywood that hated it. Ultra-liberal leaning writers and producers were looking for a way to make a statement against what they saw was a conglomorative threat to their liberal ideals. They found it (or they thought they had) in RoboCop. It’s a violent movie that will appeal to young males and supply a subtle dose of anti-corporate subtext.

The filmmakers also include bizarre and random segments of news shows for that dystopian future. These segments fill in gaps while RoboCop is being programmed and between a few major plot segments. They were designed to show even further evidence of the dangers that selfish capitalistic policies pose to civilization if let run rampant, but it all comes across as dated and hokey. There was simply too much time and effort put into refining these anti-corporate extras and not enough time developing a compelling story.

This brings us to the film’s substance. At one point, RoboCop’s memories of Murphy’s family become so frequent it seems as if he’ll try to find them and reconcile with his loved ones and himself about the machine he has become. But, instead of taking an introspective angle, the film becomes a revenge piece. RoboCop goes after the bad guy, which almost makes him a tool really. Sure, in the end his sense of honor and duty help him put a stop to his developers' nefarious plans, but is that really enough of a message?

I don’t think so. Sure, it shows that duty and honor can overcome the most intimate of villains, even those posing as your friends, but that message has been delivered so many times in movies that it’s a cliché. Besides, there was no real conflict for RoboCop to bring down his creators. His programming tried to stop him, but there was no ethical or moral dilemma present.

That’s the big problem- as hard as they may have tried, RoboCop is too far removed from his humanity to even affect us as viewers. They got close, but then shied away for a path that would keep the bloodthirsty adolescents happy. And bloodthirsty it is! Even RoboCop’s methods cross the line on police brutality by today’s standards. I don’t know if this was intended as part of the anti-cultural subtleties or not, but it was jarring nonetheless.

I liked some of the gritty filmmaking techniques that gave a better sense of realism and (in some cases) a quasi-indie feel, but RoboCop is nothing more than an underdeveloped guilty pleasure.

RATING: 2.75 out of 5

Enchanted (2007)

After several years worth of snarky, self-aware fairy tale-skewering Hollywood hits, Disney finally caught on and took aim at its own lengthy portfolio of animated cheese. Enchanted more than hits the mark. It destroys the mark altogether. Where one would expect Disney to hold back in reverence to its most time-honored fairy tale conventions, Enchanted lays it on thick, as if it were one of the cynical hecklers that live to berate schmaltz.

The film opens as if it were an animated film. A beautiful young maiden named Giselle has secretly caught the ire of an evil queen. Giselle wakes in the morning, sings a sweet song and receives help in getting ready for the day with the help of her animal friends. These early scenes had my eyes rolling and my gut busting with laughter. Make no mistake, Disney’s pulling no punches.

The evil queen tries but fails to dispatch of the maiden before her dashing prince of a son discovers and falls madly in love with her. It’s perfectly gag-tastic. As a last ditch effort, the queen throws the girl into an enchanted well and she ends up as a flesh and blood human being in our world. Wanting to break the idealistic Giselle’s outlook, the queen sent her to New York City, where she would be surrounded by cynical, impatient and rude people around every corner.

Dressed in a huge, poofy dress, Giselle walks the streets looking for help. Jaded and bitter New Yorkers just pay her no mind and she is left nearly desperate. She finds help in Robert Phillip (Patrick Dempsey), a divorced father of one. His daughter quickly falls in love with the idea of having a real princess in their apartment but Robert just wants to put her up for a night and get the nut out of his place.

Sure enough, her prince travels to our world in search of his one true love. He is “assisted” by one of his mother’s advisors, who tries to do everything he can to prevent the prince from succeeding. More of the culture clash humor arises from his quest than from Giselle’s predicament. There are plenty of laughs from her end of the story, but there is also the serious side, which dilutes the fun ever so slightly. You know, the moral of the story.

For all the goofy fun that Enchanted brings to the table, Disney couldn’t help but fall victim to some of the same conventions they roast. The ending is fairly predictable, but it is, after all, a fairy tale. What fairy tale isn’t predictable?

Enchanted is one of the rare films that just about everyone can enjoy. The snarky jibes at fairy tale clichés will appeal to the cynics while the idealistic romanticism will appeal to the rest of the crowd. It makes a few things very clear- First, there’s a reason why fairy tales are best left animated. The costumes and songs are all immensely ridiculous when being worn and sung by flesh and blood actors. Second, cynical views of life and happiness are only okay in small doses. Enchanted really manages to kill two birds with one stone and get two messages out there. Good job.

Also, credit has to be given to the actors. Amy Adams and James Marsden really sell their vapid characters. They go all out and appear to be uninhibited by any doubts about looking or sounding as silly as they do. Dempsey gives a committed performance as an all-too-straight talking dad who doesn’t wish to be bothered by any of Giselle’s delusional yammerings.

The writing is dead on, the acting is tight and the music is light and fun. Enchanted shows that Disney has a sense of humor and can pick on themselves like nobody else. It’s a solid film overall, but it’s not worthy of multiple viewings. You’ll either grow too cynical or to idealistic if you watch it too much. Pull this one out from time to time when you need a good laugh.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

Uncle Buck (1989)

The master of 1980’s and early 90’s cinema John Hughes crafts a delightful tale of familial dysfunction spawning familial togetherness in suburbia. The Russell family live in an upper-middle class bubble that is burst when Mrs. Russell’s father has a heart attack. In a frantic move to find someone to take care of their three children, Mr. Russell employs the services of his slob of a brother Buck (John Candy). Hilarity ensues (to a point).

Buck has a good heart, but little common sense when it comes to taking care of children. The youngest two Russell children, 8-year old Miles (Macaulay Culkin) and 6-year old Maizy, fall in love with their goofy uncle immediately, but Buck has to work on the antagonizing 15-year old Tia. The two butt heads over a number of issues, including Tia’s boyfriend, whom Buck doesn’t trust for a second.

The tension between Buck and Tia isn’t unlike the tension Tia manufactures with her parents. The family recently moved so Tia tries to make everyone’s lives miserable to show her displeasure. Too bad for her that Buck sees right through her act and only fights fire with fire. Tia crosses a few lines, including sabotaging Buck’s relationship with his girlfriend, but Buck never gives up on his niece.

John Candy was part of a generation of comedic greats that just exude humor in everything they do. His performance as Buck is nearly flawless and he hits all his lines with perfect timing and deft skill. Macaulay Culkin shows off his skills as well, but the rest of the supporting cast is forgettable. Still, Hughes knows how to write comedy and he knows how to bring it out of his actors.

Unfortunately, the dysfunctionality of the Russell family doesn’t remain intact for the duration of the film. The final third of the film deals with Buck leveling with angsty Tia and her eventual turnaround from her mopey, selfish antics. As Mr. and Mrs. Russell return, Buck makes a triumphant exit as a half-witted difference maker. Hughes is known for sappy endings, so I wasn’t too surprised when the comedy subsided for 10-15 minutes in place of serious family-building, but it dilutes the fun of what had been a joyous comedic romp up to that point.

I’ve never been a big fan of message films being coated with a thick comedic shell. I like my comedies funny the whole way through. Maybe I’m a bit unreasonable in that regard, but once you get through the comedy and into the message, the taste isn’t as sweet and it’s a minor letdown. Fortunately there is just enough fun in Uncle Buck to make you forget the boring parts.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

The Sixth Sense* (1999)

In a cinematic world that was all too tightly embracing slasher gore for cheap scares, M. Night Shyamalan came out of virtually nowhere and reeducated us all in the art of fright. In his major motion picture directorial debut, Shyamalan crafts a nearly perfect mystery thriller that knows all the right strings to pull. The depth and range of emotions that he manages to pull from his actors and the quality product that he produces with this film leaves little doubt as to why he was being hailed as the next Alfred Hitchcock.

Bruce Willis stars as a child psychologist trying to help a young boy with a peculiar dilemma. The boy, named Cole (brilliantly played by Haley Joel Osment), has a secret that he is too scared to reveal to anyone. Slowly, Willis earns the boy's trust and he begins to help Cole conquer his demons. Along the way, there are plenty of jolts and classical scares.

Instead of overusing blood and gore that teen horror flicks had come to rely on for chills, Shyamalan crafts a genuinely creepy tale that knows what scares us most- the unknown and the unseen. Some of the scariest moments in the film come while we’re anticipating something to happen. Shyamalan really has a handle on how to manipulate the subtle surroundings that cause our own minds to scare ourselves silly when we’re alone in the house.

And not enough can be said about Osment’s Oscar-nominated performance. It must be psychological, but seeing a child frozen with fear is itself terrifying. Had the film been about an adult suffering the same problems as Cole, it wouldn’t have been nearly as successful. The inclusion of children as an element of terror works almost like clockwork.

If you can’t tell, I’m being very protective of the film’s big secrets because I don’t want to spoil it for anybody. Sure, it was made nearly 10 years ago, but this film is so ingenious that I’m not willing to risk spoiling it. It’s seriously that good.

The fantastic and shocking story makes the film worth watching. The symbolic and significant use of color, camera angles and imagery that you’re likely to miss the first time through make it worth repeat viewings. The chills and thrills may not work as well your second or third time through, but it’s unlikely that you’ll ever forget the first time you saw The Sixth Sense.

Unfortunately, Shyamalan had hit-or-miss success with his later films. His unparalleled success with his first major film really set the bar unfairly high and few have been able to give him a fair shake since, but no one can take away the greatness he accomplished with this film.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5