This movie has no heart, no soul, like one character claims of Murphy, it's just a "Tin-man"; a shell of a movie that has nothing beneath its skin.
The movie utterly fails to deliver upon the promise of the original. While the original is a flawed movie it does manage to achieve some pure moments that demand the viewer's attention. Robocop 2014 is more polished than the original but is sterile and unconvincing.
Gone is the gratuitous violence of the original. In its place is violence so softened that it loses all gravity. Robocop 2014 resembles a video game, there's no real sense of danger to the main character, no power behind the machine that is "cleaning up" crime, just a sterile movie where everything falls into place and no one is left offended. I'm not trying to say that gratuitous violence is always appropriate, but in order to create a sense of how dangerous the Detroit of Robocop 2014 is there needs to be a real sense that violence is out of control. Only a city that has become a warzone could put a robot on the streets. The original showcased the dangers of Detroit perfectly in the pursuit on the highway in broad daylight. An American city where there's a roaming gun battle between police and a crime syndicate hits home pretty hard. The viewer is made keenly aware that crime is so out of control that it blatantly challenges the authorities without fear. Robocop 2014 doesn't have anything like that; thus the viewer is left unfulfilled in understanding the danger posed to the citizens.
Gone is any cleverness in the satire. While the original's satire wasn't brilliant it was still clever enough to illicit a knowing laugh from someone who was really paying attention. Robocop 2014 removes this cleverness for heavy handed, ham-fisted scenes from Samuel Jackson. Jackson only has one speed in his acting, and his scenes grow tiresome quickly. There's nothing subtle about anything Jackson does in his career and his performance here is more of the same. His portrayal of a sensationalist journalist could have been a great addition to the movie. Instead it's too heavy handed and unoriginal.
Gone is a true villain. How they missed this aspect of the movie I don't understand. The three "bad guys" are composed of 1) A mob guy who is under developed and cast aside pretty quickly 2) a guy who's just a jerk, and 3) A guy who I'm not sure ever actually committed a crime. The original was carried by two great performances by the villains, they ground the movie and help establish the sense of pervasive danger that I mentioned before. RoboCop 2014 just has a couple of guys who you don't like, but who aren't really bad guys. The only true bad guy is so under developed that I almost forgot he existed while writing this review. This is the guy who is bringing Detroit to its knees? Yawn...
Gone is any semblance of character development. The original RoboCop had a really great closing line and helped wrap the whole movie up and left the viewer with some closure and hope. RoboCop 2014 just ends. Murphy's development is stunted (at best), you don't know if he's made any real progress. His development is handled haphazardly, he starts off in good shape, slides backwards, moves forward, then back, and then the final ten minutes of action takes place and you don't get a good understanding of where he is emotionally. The original provided a steadier progress in Murphy's development, slowly but surely the wall is chipped away. In Robocop 2014 you never get this feeling of progress, stuff happens but it doesn't really seem to matter.
Overall this is an action movie for the 21st century. Soulless, heartless, inoffensive, boring, and built to maximize profit. Again, the original is a flawed movie, but RoboCop 2014 is not an improvement and in almost every meaningful way is a step backwards. Some movies should not be family friendly and this is one of them.
The movie utterly fails to deliver upon the promise of the original. While the original is a flawed movie it does manage to achieve some pure moments that demand the viewer's attention. Robocop 2014 is more polished than the original but is sterile and unconvincing.
Gone is the gratuitous violence of the original. In its place is violence so softened that it loses all gravity. Robocop 2014 resembles a video game, there's no real sense of danger to the main character, no power behind the machine that is "cleaning up" crime, just a sterile movie where everything falls into place and no one is left offended. I'm not trying to say that gratuitous violence is always appropriate, but in order to create a sense of how dangerous the Detroit of Robocop 2014 is there needs to be a real sense that violence is out of control. Only a city that has become a warzone could put a robot on the streets. The original showcased the dangers of Detroit perfectly in the pursuit on the highway in broad daylight. An American city where there's a roaming gun battle between police and a crime syndicate hits home pretty hard. The viewer is made keenly aware that crime is so out of control that it blatantly challenges the authorities without fear. Robocop 2014 doesn't have anything like that; thus the viewer is left unfulfilled in understanding the danger posed to the citizens.
Gone is any cleverness in the satire. While the original's satire wasn't brilliant it was still clever enough to illicit a knowing laugh from someone who was really paying attention. Robocop 2014 removes this cleverness for heavy handed, ham-fisted scenes from Samuel Jackson. Jackson only has one speed in his acting, and his scenes grow tiresome quickly. There's nothing subtle about anything Jackson does in his career and his performance here is more of the same. His portrayal of a sensationalist journalist could have been a great addition to the movie. Instead it's too heavy handed and unoriginal.
Gone is a true villain. How they missed this aspect of the movie I don't understand. The three "bad guys" are composed of 1) A mob guy who is under developed and cast aside pretty quickly 2) a guy who's just a jerk, and 3) A guy who I'm not sure ever actually committed a crime. The original was carried by two great performances by the villains, they ground the movie and help establish the sense of pervasive danger that I mentioned before. RoboCop 2014 just has a couple of guys who you don't like, but who aren't really bad guys. The only true bad guy is so under developed that I almost forgot he existed while writing this review. This is the guy who is bringing Detroit to its knees? Yawn...
Gone is any semblance of character development. The original RoboCop had a really great closing line and helped wrap the whole movie up and left the viewer with some closure and hope. RoboCop 2014 just ends. Murphy's development is stunted (at best), you don't know if he's made any real progress. His development is handled haphazardly, he starts off in good shape, slides backwards, moves forward, then back, and then the final ten minutes of action takes place and you don't get a good understanding of where he is emotionally. The original provided a steadier progress in Murphy's development, slowly but surely the wall is chipped away. In Robocop 2014 you never get this feeling of progress, stuff happens but it doesn't really seem to matter.
Overall this is an action movie for the 21st century. Soulless, heartless, inoffensive, boring, and built to maximize profit. Again, the original is a flawed movie, but RoboCop 2014 is not an improvement and in almost every meaningful way is a step backwards. Some movies should not be family friendly and this is one of them.