Here's an encouraging scenario: A high-tech company, OmniCorp, erects a Detroit skyscraper on the riverfront as part of the city's economic recovery.
Yes, it's screenplay fiction set in 2028 -- but we welcome whatever we can these days.
Joel Kinnaman plays RoboCop in the remake opening Wednesday. (Columbia Pictures photo)
The new riverside tower, of course, is in the "RoboCop" update hitting theaters this week (video trailer below). Julie Hinds gives a Page One preview in the Free Press:
This isn’t your father’s “RoboCop,” the 1987 science-fiction classic about Detroit policeman Alex Murphy’s transformation into a justice machine.
This is the remake that opens Wednesday. And before the action moves to the Motor City, it opens with a news report from Tehran, Iran, one of the foreign hot spots where robot drones are replacing American soldiers.
Though filmed mainly in Toronto and Vancouver, the two-hour movie has local footage.
The Detroit presence is most noticeable in aerial shots of the city.
Small touches also establish the sense of place, from the Red Wings signs on Murphy’s son’s bedroom door to a brief scene in which Murphy watches an online Free Press video story about himself.
Hinds speaks with director Jose Padiha about the city's role, which he sees as essential:
“You can shoot somewhere else, but you cannot pretend you are somewhere else in the movie. It has to be Detroit. It was a choice that was made in ’87, and we stuck with it. The character is identified with the city.”
Indeed, in real life, a 10-foot-tall RoboCop statue that grew from a 2011 tweet to former Mayor Dave Bing to a crowd-sourced movement is supposed to be cast in bronze and installed in Detroit later this year.
The Free Press article, reachable at a "Read More" link below the video, outlines the plot of a film that Hinds calls "more serious and grittier than its predecessor." With help from a Wayne State dean, she also reflects on changing local views about whether the first "RoboCop" was a "cheap shot" at Detroit.
-- Alan Stamm
