RoboCop (2014)

Some remakes justify their existence. They find a fresh angle, bring something new to the table, or at least have the good grace to be entertaining. The 2014 RoboCop does none of these things. It is, from start to finish, a soulless, joyless retread that made me appreciate Paul Verhoeven's 1987 original all over again, purely by contrast.

Let me be clear about what the original was. It was a razor-sharp, blood-soaked satire of capitalism, corporate greed, media culture, and police brutality, disguised as an ultraviolent sci-fi action film. It was funny, brutal, strange, and deeply humane. It had a point of view. It had a soul beneath the steel. It was, frankly, one of the best genre films of its decade. So the question any remake has to answer is: what are you bringing to this that we haven't already got? And the 2014 version's answer, as far as I can tell, is: slightly better CGI and Michael Keaton in a suit.

Joel Kinnaman takes on the role of Alex Murphy, and I genuinely wanted to like him in it. But there's no charisma here, no pathos, nothing to grab onto. His transformation into RoboCop carries none of the tragedy it should. In Verhoeven's film, the horror of what happens to Murphy is visceral and deeply unsettling. Here it feels like a software installation. A firmware update. You're watching a man become a machine, and the film barely seems to notice that it ought to be devastating.

The film makes a show of engaging with contemporary issues, drones, AI ethics, the military-industrial complex, which sounds promising on paper. But it handles all of it with such timidity that the commentary evaporates before it can land. Everything is watered down and safe. The violence is sanitised. The satire is toothless. The whole thing feels like it was stress-tested by a focus group and approved by a committee. There's a grey, flat, joyless quality to nearly every frame, and not in a way that feels deliberate or stylised. It just looks like nobody had a strong vision for what they were making.

The action is clunky rather than kinetic, the pacing sluggish in all the wrong places, and the suit, clearly designed to look sleek and modern, ends up looking awkward and somehow lacking in any real presence. Keaton's villainous CEO is the biggest waste. He's a genuinely interesting screen presence given almost nothing to do, and what he is given doesn't make the impression it should. You leave the film barely remembering his character exists.

Good action cinema, the kind I'd point you towards with A Bittersweet Life or even Mad Max: Fury Road, understands that style and substance aren't opposites. You can have blistering action and something to say. You can be visceral and still be thoughtful. This RoboCop manages neither.

The most damning thing I can say about it is this: it doesn't just fail on its own terms, it actively makes the legacy of the original feel smaller by association. It takes a genuinely subversive, brilliantly crafted piece of genre filmmaking and uses it as raw material for something that feels like a corporate product test. No satire, no fun, no heart. Just a grey shell going through the motions.

Two stars. Watch the 1987 film instead. Then watch it again. RoboCop deserved better. We all did.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 2014  | Watched: 2025-09-22

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