The original 1987 RoboCop is great. It’s one of the first movies I remember being really excited to see, and I was desolate when Canada’s interpretation of the “R” rating meant I couldn’t even watch it with my dad. (I had to wait to rent it on VHS.) I’ve seen a film or two since, but that RoboCop still holds up as a sci-fi classic. (Really. There’s even a Criterion Collection edition.)
This new RoboCop is a remix, a reimagining. The fundamental story is the same: In the near future, Detroit cop Alex Murphy is nearly killed, and subsequently employed as a testbed for megacorp OCP’s newest cyborg technology. Man’s struggle within the machine, zeitgeisty set pieces, shiny effects and some sharp social satire round out the package.
But it’s that zeitgeist that really changes the new film’s focus. This is RoboCop as imagined by First Amendment lawyers.
When Paul Verhoeven took our collective pulse in 1987, what bubbled up was a fascination with violent crime, cocaine cowboys, urban blight, microcomputing, Japanese corporate supremacy, nuclear fears and the Cold War, all swirling amidst old-guard corporate structures led by reassuring silver foxes. Today’s audiences apparently don’t fret themselves to sleep worrying that depraved criminals will soon run rampant, terrorizing our families and plunging our cities into ruin. We neither marvel at computers, fear nuclear armageddon, nor revere stuffy, old guard blue-chip hierarchies.
Now we’re more concerned with drones, automation, the NSA, CCTV, wikileaks, personal privacy, and due process. 
Try to recenter the RoboCop story on this vastly different social scaffolding and what emerges is a tale where the greedy grey CEO in the sack-cut suit is replaced by leather-jacket-sporting “visionary” entrepreneur (admittedly enjoyable thanks to Michael Keaton); where political maneuvering is vilified in place of common street crime; and where the true danger to citizens is a surveillance state implemented by exceptionalist American imperialists.
And RoboCop, bless him, just isn’t the best hero for that tale.
Verhoeven’s original RoboCop was man abruptly made machine. Peter Weller stepped gleaming into a hellish dystopic Detroit consumed by violence, fire, darkness, and depravity — the first film was oddly prophetic in this regard — and his machinelike efficiency made him a formidable weapon against crime. That RoboCop dispatched scum with ruthless economy, a metallic voiceover, and a seemingly unlimited pistol magazine. Audiences cheered. The more robotic Murphy was, the better equipped he was to save our streets, to champion our cause, to frighten those who would frighten us. His struggle to recapture some humanity seemed at odds with his deadly prowess, so it meant something. His helmet didn’t come off until the end.
Now, it’s the opposite: The more robotic Murphy is, the more he embodies these surveillance-state evils and the less we can afford to like him. Murphy himself is present to varying degrees right from the start — the man in the machine — and his helmet, accordingly, is off pretty much throughout. And the criminals who injured him are reduced to an afterthought.
I preferred the original. It made more sense.
Grouchy nostalgia aside, the 2014 RoboCop is actually very watchable. It’s visually memorable and on the whole, well acted. Samuel L. Jackson is terrific as a rabble-rousing pro-robot television host. The famed ED-209 sadly gets no star turn this time, but looks good nonetheless. And my fellow Torontonians will enjoy spotting which neighborhoods apparently pass for Detroit nowadays, as well as the special pleasure of seeing RoboCop driving around Adelaide Street. And let’s face it, this film is miles better than any of the early sequels.
This is perhaps best seen as a companion piece to the original. Together, they’re two takes on an interesting story. On its own, the new RoboCop is shiny and slick, but just — empty.
HAUS VERDICT: Enjoyable, but context really changed this. I miss the 80s. Our zeitgeist sucks.