Keep your EMP on hand.
From the producer that set the destruction of the “Spider-Man”
film franchise in motion comes a film with even less imagination than the toy
that actually inspired it.
Despite my fondness for many of the properties, I freely
make fun of the fact that 80s cartoons were the laziest yet somehow most effective
commercial vehicles of advertising history. Inventive toy designs aside, what
made those cartoons so hypnotic despite their embarrassing production values
was that the core “story” of the product that they were trying to sell was actually
cool. I don’t exactly care how it pans out; the story of a race of transforming
robots is something that I’m kind of curious to hear.
RoboSapien is just a robot. This means that they had free
reign to tell any story they could have chosen from scratch or they could have
copped out to pander to its non-discerning demographic by referencing trends
that were nearing expiration even at the height of their popularity. Can you
guess which route it took given that it’s crossed my path?
To be fair to it, the first 15 minutes or so did actually
kick off with promise. RoboSapien is an experimental military weapon designed
for covert infiltration for the purposes of rescue missions, developed by an evil
mega corporation so bland and forgettable transparent that I won’t even dignify
its existence by looking up its name that completely slipped out of my memory before
the half way mark of the film. Said company is run by Kim Coates, who looks
more embarrassed in his 15 minutes of screen time here than in any given
episode of “Sons of Anarchy” dealing with his character’s sexual deviancy.
The man has sold an entire character arc on his capability
to act more through his casual body language than an expression of dialogue yet
his one note character and lines carrying the simplicity of a 5 year old are
where he looks flat out uncomfortable.
When RoboSapien’s creator discovers his employer’s nefarious
plot to weaponize his creation and sell it to foreign nationals, he tells
RoboSapien to flee the pursuing guards. In the resulting chase he is damaged
and found amnesiac by Henry, a bright tech savvy boy with bullying problems who
manages to repair him.
Based on that set up, you would think that what we have is a
reasonable Spielberg-esque set up for a family film where the two learn about
themselves through one another culminating in an unforgettable adventure in
which Henry finally gains his much deserved confidence while hiding RoboSapien’s
existence to the rest of the world. That’s what should have happened.
What actually happens is a laziness the likes of which I don’t
often run into but dread coming across.
While the set appears to play out, the
secret comes out of the bag pretty early when RoboSapien makes himself known
Henry’s family and classmates and endears himself to them through the sheer
coolness of being a sentient robot. At this point, the plot pretty much stops.
What ensues is almost 50% of the film featuring RoboSapien with a grating
childish voice and doing “hip” things for the kiddies like break dancing and
doing the robot. Y’know, stuff from the last decade.
Needless to say, “RoboSapien Rebooted’s” initial charm sinks
fast.
1½ Shatners
Bottom Line: I’d say “RoboSapien Rebooted” feels like a
parody of bad 90s children’s movies but even crap like “Star Kid” was more
imaginative than this.
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