In RoboCop, the year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years, but have been forbidden for law enforcement in America. Now OmniCorp wants to bring their controversial technology to the home front, and they see a golden opportunity to do it. When Alex Murphy – a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit – is critically injured, OmniCorp sees their chance to build a part-man, part-robot police officer. OmniCorp envisions a RoboCop in every city and even more billions for their shareholders, but they never counted on one thing: there is still a man inside the machine.
Neither Alex Murphy's internal moral conflict nor the larger, vaguely satiric portrait of a global culture dependent on high-tech law enforcement seem to be the main point of this Robocop remake, which raises the question of what is meant to be the point.
– Dana Stevens,
Slate,
13 Feb 2014
rotten:
Cynical, boring, PG-13 retread.
– Richard Roeper,
Richard Roeper.com,
13 Feb 2014
rotten:
This Robo-reboot tries fiercely to update the satirical punch and stylistic perversity Paul Verhoeven's 1987 original. It's a futile gesture.
– Peter Travers,
Rolling Stone,
14 Feb 2014
fresh:
Padilha is Brazilian, and it's interesting that both RoboCops have been made by men whose non-Hollywood work focused on their respective countries' curdled politics.
– Wesley Morris,
Grantland,
14 Feb 2014
rotten:
Surveying the peculiar array of 1980s retreads clustered into release this week, I'm reminded of Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II, traveling forward in time 30 years to discover that everything is still the same, only worse.