RoboCop Reboot

 Part man. Part machine. All cop. New look.

Filming on the remake of the much-beloved 1987 sci-fi action flick "RoboCop" recently began in Toronto, and ComingSoon.net grabbed the first photos of the updated costume for the cyborg crimefighter. The bulky, chrome look of the original has been replaced by a trimmed-down silhouette with a black matte finish. It does have a helmet that is open only at the mouth like the first suit, but this one also leaves his right hand exposed.

That's Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman (TV's "The Killing") inside the costume as Alex Murphy, a gunned-down Detroit police officer reborn as an unstoppable robotic force for justice.  This will be the American debut for director José Padilla, who previously made the acclaimed "Elite Squad" films in his native Brazil. The remake also stars Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton.

Like Peter Weller, who played the character in the first film, Kinnaman is tall and lanky, which is important so that when he's inside the suit it doesn't appear too cumbersome or unwieldy. Reportedly, Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally considered to play the role the first time around, but his size would have made moving in the suit impossible.  Schwarzenegger later teamed up with "RoboCop" director Paul Verhoeven for "Total Recall," which also got a recent remake.

The suit in the original took designer Rob Bottin ten months to construct at a cost of nearly $1 million (the budget for the entire film was only around $13 million).  There were actually multiple versions of the costume made, with some painted to look damaged after the climactic battle scene.  Weller said it got so hot in the suit he lost upwards of three pounds a day just from sweating.

Fan reaction to the new suit has been mixed, with some Internet commenters saying he looks more like Christian Bale's Batman than RoboCop.  Perhaps the filmmakers felt like "Iron Man" has captured the market on shiny robotic suits, so they decided to make it less reflective.  Also, online reviews of early drafts of the script suggest RoboCop goes through several different upgrades through the film, so this might not be the final iteration of his new look.

We'll see just how well this new "RoboCop" can serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law when it hits theaters on August 9, 2013.