Which is not to say it was necessary.
Indeed, of all movies made in the 80s, Robocop would have been considered as a very unlikely candidate to be remade at all. The original was a fantastic, gorefest, schlock-filled action hit and that toxic melt sequence lives long in the memory. To reboot it was nothing more than a money-making exercise, but if we overlook the morality of the affair, is the movie any good? Well, it isn't bad, put it that way. Like the original it's set in a dystopian future, and like the original it features Alex Murphy's remains brought back to life in a robot, but it changes a great deal about the story, not least Lewis' gender (Battlefield 4 players will recognise Irish's voice returning as Murphy's partner).
The plot focuses on the Dreyfuss bill which bans the use of robots for law enforcement in the US, because it's felt the absence of emotion makes them unsuitable, despite the success of their deployment everywhere else in the world. Samuel L Jackson's wildly OTT Novak obsesses over that on his night-time soapbox show the Novak Element, and fully supports Omnicorps' Sellers (Keaton) bid to get their product on the streets of the US, Detroit especially.
Murphy's Robocop (built by Oldman's Dr Norton) is a way around that, and thereafter it's a case of 'where it all went wrong'. That very cliché is used constantly but this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Fans of the original movie should enjoy this, even if it feels slightly pointless. The visual effects are pretty extraordinary in truth, and the action sequences thoroughly enjoyable.
The first review on the page does make a good point - there is no one obvious outright bad guy - unlike the original's brilliant Kurtwood Smith, Murphy isn't up against a particular enemy. However the side issue here is that this kind of misses the point - the change in this movie is that a combination of Omnicorp, his killer, and one or two other characters leads Murphy to a pursuit of avengement. There doesn't need to be a big bad guy - just like video games don't always need a boss fight, movies don't always need a nemesis.
For me the way it's structured doesn't detract.
Fundamentally it's a different movie to the original, a homage which is frankly well made but goes in its own direction.
Whether you like that or not is up to you, but I have personally seen far worse movies.
