Joel Kinnaman Says The New 'RoboCop' Will Be "More Human"

I'm tempted to put this down in the "actors are usually the last to know" column, but there is probably something to this, given that costume tests and so forth have evidently commenced: Joel Kinnaman, recently chosen to be the new RoboCop for director José Padilha, is talking about the new suit designs. We've heard suggestions from Padilha that his take on the film will be a little bit less exaggerated sci-fi cop movie than Paul Verhoeven's original satire was. Now we've got one more detail: Kinnaman says this new version of the character "is going to be a lot more human."

Speaking to MTV, Kinnaman praised Padilha ("José Padilha is a badass. He's the real deal.") and talked about the new film being influenced by current studies in neuroscience:

There's a lot of neuroscience now raising the question, 'Is all the intelligence in the human body in the brain?' and they're finding out that, no, it's not like that. The body has intelligence itself, and we're much more of an organic creature in that way. It's not a control tower that does everything.

He said this film will not quite have the tone of Verhoeven's movie — a good thing, I think, because why try to directly replicate something that still works quite well? — but that there will still be an edge of satire to the telling.

He explains in part,

It's a re-imagination of it. There's a lot of stuff from the original. There are some details and throwbacks, but this version is a much better acting piece, for Alex Murphy and especially when he is RoboCop. It's much more challenging... [The helmet is] not going to be jaw action. They're still working on the suit and how it's going to look, but the visor is going to be see-through. You're going to see his eyes.

Again: I'm happy for the changes. Verhoeven's original still plays like gangbusters, but I'm interested to see if Padilha can make it his own, and reflect the spirit we've seen in his Elite Squad films.