You just don’t remake a Paul Verhoeven film. That should be a general rule for Hollywood. It’s practically impossible to replicate the Dutch filmmaker’s masterful blending of social satire, sex and graphic violence.
So, when Hollywood decided to remake “RoboCop”and “Total Recall,” two Verhoeven sci-fi classics, I just knew it wouldn’t end well for all of the creatives involved. No surprise then that both of these 21st Century “updates” failed, miserably. “Total Recall” (2012) has a 31% on Rotten Tomatoes, and “RoboCop” (2014) has a 49%.
In a recent interview, Verhoeven seems to agree with the consensus. He admits having seen both remakes, which ended up leaving him dissatisfied, and frustrated. Do you blame him?
Regarding 2014’s “Robocop,” Verhoeven took issue with the lack of subtleties and nuances, in addition to the total self-awareness of the titular character:
The problem there, I felt, was that he was really aware that he lost all his legs and arms. He knows it from the very beginning. The beautiful thing about the original RoboCop, what makes it not just pure tragedy or whatever, is that he really does not know anymore. He gets a couple of vague flashes of memory when he goes to his old house, but RoboCop is not a tragic figure. Yes, he’s killed in the most horrible way in the beginning. But when we see him again as a robot, he doesn’t feel that. In the new one, because he remembers everything, he’s much more tragic. We wanted you to accept him at the beginning as a robotic cop. That’s what they did to him. In my opinion, I thought it was a problem to make him more tragic.
When it comes to 2012’s “Total Recall”, Verhoeven believes his original 1990 classic left some questions unanswered, which was part of its beauty, and that the remake cuddled to audiences, stripping the original film’s mysteries and ambiguities:
I felt it had a lot of special effects, but this mystery—is it true or is it not true?—I just didn’t feel that anymore. The interesting thing about the original movie is that at the end, when Rachel Ticotin says, “Well, kiss me quick before you wake up,” you still don’t really know if it’s real.” He also praised Jerry Goldsmith’s score, which still stands as one of his most compelling works.
Let’s hope that’s the end of Hollywood replicating Verhoeven. We don’t need remakes of “Showgirls,” “Starship Troopers,” and “Basic Instinct.” Verhoeven is Verhoeven — there’s no other filmmaker like him.
At 85, Verhoeven isn’t done with filmmaking either — he’s set to shoot his next movie, titled “Young Sinner,” which will be his first American production since 2000’s “Hollow Man.”