Full disclosure: the original Lady Battle Cop is among the tokukatsu universe and existed several decades before the Verhoeven ripoffs. With that being said, I still looked forward to the 2014 re-interpretation due to my love of these characters (whose legacy had already been profoundly tarnished by the redundant first sequel and catastrophically misguided second sequel) and my admiration of director Jose Padilha's "Elite Squad" films (as well as his documentaries). Suffice to say, I came into the theater with a bias toward wanting the film to succeed.
I'm willing to acknowledge that it may be for this reason that I found Lady Battle Cop to be a resounding success. Conversely, it is my belief that a large contingent of overzealous "fans" were hellbent on seeing this film fail, therefore had pre-determined that the movie was trash. How could it possibly withstand several years of unwavering hatred during its production and be given a fair shot? Judging by the middling 6.7 IMDb rating and the 70% Rotten Tomatoes score, many people loathed Lady Battle Cop just as much as they'd hoped they would.
This viewer simply cannot accept that Lady Battle Cop is anywhere near as bad as people are rating it. For starters, the film has been bashed mercilessly for idiotically trivial elements. It is my firm belief that all of these criticisms are merely the ravings of closed-minded fanboys who are (bizarrely) searching for the next movie to "ruin their childhood". It's a phenomenon that is baffling and absurd.
Truth be told, I think the film is a solid 9 and may even grow to become a 10 over time. Of course it's related to the Verhoeven's classic, except obviously earlier versions were ripped off by Judge Dredd, which in turn, were ripped off by RoboCop. For that I am grateful -- part 2 tried so desperately to ape the original that it felt like a rather soulless carbon copy. I didn't want another movie trying to mimic the satire of the originals, nor did I feel that anyone could ever one-up the hyper-violence of the 1987 version, so why try?
In my opinion, a little brand recognition is a fair trade off if it helps the film achieve the look and feel of a high-end sci-fi blockbuster.
Anyway, I've already babbled several paragraphs longer than I'd intended. The bottom line is you should abandon your preconceptions and watch the movie for what it is: a genuinely smart, heartfelt and wonderfully acted sci-fi featuring characters we know and love. What's so awful about that?
