When reading reviews of Robocop (2014) people keep advising not to compare it to the original. They are insistent on judging this film on its own merit. I agree with the latter. But to ignore the original, that is impossible. I do know why that is. Simple truth: Paul Verhoeven's Robocop (1987) is in all ways superior to this piece of crap.
Paul Verhoeven provided hard hitting action, thrills, drama, comedy and depth. This remake does not do anything exceptional in the slightest. Story wise it is an extremely watered down version of the original devoid of any heart and emotion. The satire is completely removed and replaced by Samuel L. Jackson, who is parodying some news host I couldn't care less about. Don't get me wrong. Sam is always welcome and extremely cool no matter what. In this case, though, we could have easily done without him. I at least hoped it would contain slick and enjoyable action or some nice eye candy. The action apart from a one or two scenes was unimaginative and pretty dull. Drama wise this was incredibly poor despite the best efforts of Gary Oldman and Michael Keaton. At times, it is noticeable they can't believe they are part of this pathetic project. Then the new Robocop himself. Joel Kinnaman. What were they thinking? With his face, he was not convincing as a hard-boiled cop at all. Paul Weller at the time might not have been a superstar, but he sure brought some meat and charisma to his role. He made his transformation believable. He was a cop who went out to do his job and becomes a victim of real unfortunate events. Joel Kinnaman was completely lost and was nothing but a man in a power suit. They had to resort to a trick to make him look like a robot as opposed to Weller as Robocop, who we have seen to be cut into pieces. You could see the hurt in his eyes.
Everything about this remake is pure laziness. Not any effort has been made to do something new. Don't get mislead that this remake is focusing on other themes and elements. What is being focused on is so uninteresting that I simply could not believe that they had the nerve to shut down any criticism before the film was made. As it turns out, everyone who were against Robocop being remade have been proven right. Ignore this one and watch the original multiple times instead. You won't regret it one bit.
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