Time: 118 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Violence
Cast:
Joel Kinnaman as Alex Murphy/RoboCop
Gary Oldman as Dr. Dennett Norton
Michael Keaton as Raymond Sellars
Abbie Cornish as Clara Murphy
Jackie Earle Haley as Rick Mattox
Michael K. Williams as Jack Lewis
Jennifer Ehle as Liz Kline
Jay Baruchel as Tom Pope
Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Karen Dean
Samuel L. Jackson as Pat Novak
Director: José Padilha

When Alex Murphy, a cop, gets injured in a bomb explosion, he is transformed into a robot police officer in order to combat criminal activities in the United States.

It’s not really surprising that most people weren’t people were excited at the idea of a remake of Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop. However, I watched it myself when it came out and I didn’t mind it. Rewatching it, it’s not that good but overall, I still like it.

Generally, remakes of classics just redo the same plots as the original films. But the RoboCop remake did make more of its own story decisions than I was expecting. Instead of just being a retelling of the original, it has something of a different flavour here. I know that this made a lot of people not like the changes, but I appreciate whenever a remake at least tries to do something different, even if it doesn’t fully succeed. The remake takes itself more seriously and lacks the camp of the original. Its biting satire has been trimmed down, but not fully erased. The social commentary touches on  high concept topics like free will, bio-ethics, capitalism and corruption. Samuel L. Jackson’s character is also definitely a parody of Fox News esque hosts. It’s also not a humourless movie, with small bits of comedy sprinkled throughout. That being said, the remake certainly lacks the personality and satirical edge of the original; even the jabs at corporate America and the like just don’t have the same impact here. While I liked what they did with the story in the first couple of acts fine enough, the third act is where it becomes the unconventional sci-fi action flick that the remake looked like it would be.

The cast are at the very least committed to their parts. Joel Kinnaman plays the lead role of Alex Murphy/Robocop. In contrast to Peter Weller’s version in the original, he’s a bit generic and hollow. But he is likable enough, he just needed better material. It doesn’t help when most of the other actors shone more. Gary Oldman brought some gravitas, and his character added a lot to the story. Michael Keaton does very well at chewing the scenery as the main villain. Jackie Earle Haley has an intriguing character but isn’t really given enough screentime. Samuel L. Jackson is used sparingly but is very entertaining in his scenes.  

Jose Padilha directs this, and his work is decent enough. It does look good, but it appears like every other modern sci-fi movie and so doesn’t look particularly special. The action scenes certainly feels lacking when compared to the gory violence of the original, and especially feels a little weightless when RoboCop is mostly put against faceless robots and masked villains. Still, it is entertaining to watch. There are some good effects throughout, and while there’s definitely a lot of CGI in the action, it doesn’t feel like a mess. While the movie is PG-13 and doesn’t have the over the top gore, there are a couple of scenes that show what’s really left of Alex Murphy and they do well at making it look very grim, almost something out of a David Cronenberg movie. Incidentally, those scenes were among the best moments from the movie.

RoboCop (2014) is very flawed, nowhere near the level of the original and doesn’t quite live up to its ideas and potential. However, it is entertaining, has good performances and enjoyable action, and at least tries to be a little different instead of being a copy of the 80s classic. All things considered, it could’ve been a lot worse.