Review: "Robocop" remake is unncessary and not all that fun

"Robocop" PG 13
The classic 1987 movie was a message story about excess corruption and the Reagan years, and cowboy cop movies. It was clever and witty, and everyone remembers Peter Weller for it. The new one is just about half of a good movie, and packs really none of the punch of the original.

The origin story is retold with more flash and flair, and neat special effects, as they introduce a future world where it's obvious drone robots are used in every country but the US, trying to the modern age message. They also have a subplot where they explain about cybernetic and prosthetic tech being used to make people better, and they keep bringing up the nation of man versus machine and free will, but not in an interesting way, just as a by the numbers bit.

In future Detroit, a cop named Murphy goers on a raid and is later nearly blown up in front of his house. The mega company that is looking to make a cybernetic being (they never say directly a cyborg) somehow obtains him and rebuilds him as their newest creation, Robocop.

But if you've seen the trailers, you've pretty much seen the movie. No surprises except for some gross out moments, but nothing really all that original. This could be Dredd or any combat video game on the market.

In 1987 you didn't have trhe tech to make realistic play video games. Now that they do, they've remade a classic. Really they've made a sequel or reboot. Just call it Robocop 4.

Well they have the robocop learn of his alleged murder, as in the first one, ans he seeks to solve it through a series of coincidental actions, while crooked politicians and businessmen vie for a robot law they want to end to sell more robots.

The original had a quirky and violent charm to it. This one is just a lot of game style stuff blowing up.

It reminded me of as lot of other modern, angrier, dark movies that were better, and some worse. It could have had a witty script. Just having him quote lines from the first one with no soul to it was just not right.

At least some of the leads get to chew scenery, like Samuel Jackson as a later day news pundit, and Michael Keaton plays the OmniCorp guy.

The new dude is not Peter Weller.

They even have a scene where the new robot cyborg gets to shoot what looks like original Robocops, which is really stupid but the director apparently thought he was being clever. See, our movie kicks the old one's butt! Uhm, no.

Review by Adam Browne