Verdict
Summary
RoboCop has a few things going for it but it remains utterly unnecessary and there is nothing about it that makes it come anywhere near as good as the original.
Plot: In 2028 Detroit, when Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) – a loving husband, father and good cop – is critically injured in the line of duty, the multinational conglomerate OmniCorp sees their chance for a part-man, part-robot police officer.
Review: So I finally got around to seeing this remake that nobody asked for, but I shall remain objective and review it as a movie on its own, not comparing to the original masterpiece.
It’s actually not THAT bad, in fact, it’s better than RoboCop 3… but then so is a root canal.
So the good: The cast are all on top form with Gary Oldman playing Doctor Norton, essentially RoboCop’s creator; he’s pretty much a good man who is used by the evil OCP corporation.
Oldman can class up any movie and he does just that with this. It’s great to see Michael Keaton in such a large role again too and he deserves to be a bigger star. He’s Batman for Heaven’s sake!
Samuel L. Jackson plays the same role as usual with him shouting a lot about America being Robophobic but he’s great fun as always.
It also maintains Basil Poledouris’ classic theme tune, so props for that even if it does sound weird.
They tried something a little different and it’s not a scene for scene remake of the original movie; it’s an exploration of losing humanity and a slight dig at drone technology. The opening scene in Tehran is quite cool but it’s pretty much after that when the cracks begin to show.
The film’s biggest problem? It’s just plain boring with the blandest characters that you will forget about after 10 minutes. It lacked a classic villain like Clarence Boddicker and everyone was just really uninteresting. Why can nobody write a really great villain these days (aside from the Joker)?
The first half plods along with very little in the way of action. There is no humour and very little satire and the lack of violence makes it even duller. It’s essentially everything that’s wrong with modern Hollywood; let’s stick in some pointless CGI, write bland and forgettable characters and remove everything that made the original film great.
Joel Kinnaman has very little charisma as Alex Murphy and I found I just didn’t care about him; he also doesn’t do a whole lot of being a cop either. It’s mostly him struggling with his humanity and not doing anything heroic at all. Why should we root for this RoboCop? I didn’t care if they shut him down or not.
We also never really get to see Detroit in decay or any criminals running rampant at all; there is no sense of threat and by this time next year nobody will remember this movie.
Overall, RoboCop has a few things going for it but it remains utterly unnecessary and there is nothing about it that makes it come anywhere near as good as the original.