For a good decade, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven busted out a series of over the top and highly entertaining movies in America before heading back to the Netherlands. He's been missed, but remakes of his movies have kept those properties alive…somewhat. While promoting ELLE at the Toronto International Film Festival, Paul Verhoeven discussed several of those remakes with Collider, particularly José Padilha's remake of ROBOCOP, and what important element they neglected to include.
Somehow they seem to think that the lightness of say Total Recall and Robocop is a hindrance. So they take these somewhat absurd stories and make them much too serious. I think that is a mistake. Especially in Robocop when he awakens they gave him the same brain. He’s a horribly injured and amputated victim, which is horrifying and tragic from the very beginning. So we didn’t do that in Robocop. His brain is gone and he has only flashes of memory and needs to go to a computer to find out who he even is. I think by not having a robot brain, you make the movie much heavier and I don’t think that helps the movie in anyway. It becomes more silly or absurd, but in the wrong way. Both those movies needed the distance of satire or comedy to situate it for audiences. Playing it straight without any humour is a problem and not an improvement.
While it wasn't necessarily the only problem which the ROBOCOP remake suffered from, a bit of humour would have definitely helped. The remake wasn't the disaster I was anticipating it would be, but it also didn't do anything to set itself apart from the endless slew of remakes which hit us over the head each year; plus, following up a film like the original ROBOCOP is a tall order for anyone. It's been over fifteen years since his last American production, but I'd love to see Verhoeven tackle another big crazy sci-fi adventure. Paul Verhoeven's latest, ELLE, will be released on November 11, 2016 but you can read a review from our own Chris Bumbray right here!
Let us know your favourite Paul Verhoeven flick in the comments!