Movie Review: RoboCop (2014)

The movie stars Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson and Abbie Cornish.

My wife and I both like the 1987 version of RoboCop and had some serious doubts about a remake. In fact, I didn’t really intend on watching this version of the movie. I had requested another film from Netflix and I got this one instead. However, we did give the movie a chance last night and, for the most part at least; I have to admit I did enjoy it.

I do still honestly prefer the original film to this one. However, when we were watching it, I decided to put that loyalty aside and judge this movie on its own merits rather than compare it to the 1980s version. And, by doing that, I did think the film had some things going for it.

One thing I liked about this particular version of the movie was the politics behind RoboCop’s creation. It wasn’t as simple as creating a cyborg cop. A number of factors had to be taken into consideration, including his ability to control his emotions so he would be efficient, the ability to be liked by the general public and even the impact his wife and son might have if they were to go public with a complaint. That part was almost as interesting as the action scenes, which were pretty decent too.

Probably the only real complaint I had about this movie is it did seem to take a long while to get going with a few too many training sequences leading up to his debut as a cop. While we understood the purpose behind showing those, my wife and I both agreed they could have been cut back significantly without any major impact on the movie, which seemed to be a bit long as a result.

As I said before, I do still prefer the original version of this movie. But, I thought this was a halfway decent remake and did end up enjoying more than I thought I would be. Had the introduction been a little shorter, I would have given it a higher grade.

My Grade: B