Robocop (2014)

Robocop (2014) directed by some guy who was just picking up a paycheck so I can't really fault him for that unless he really thought he was doing something special, starring a bunch people who I hope were also just there to pick up a paycheck and weren't under the assumption they were making a better movie than the original: Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman - who ultimately steal this movie from all the special effects and spectacle on display.

Why was this movie even made?

The original Robocop is a classic, not just a sci-fi classic but a classic movie in general.  No amount of updating is going to make it better but will only make it worse as this movie proves.  Yes, the special effects are better.  Yes, the visuals of the movie are better.  Yes, the movie does look better than the original.  No, the story line is worse than the original.  I could go on and on about how this movie is completely different from the far superior and original Robocop but I won't.

This movie strives to humanize the main character but fails in the one aspect of not actually killing off the main character.  In the original the main character died so his journey to regain his humanity was a journey the audience took with him.  His savage, brutal, and gory death only helped to connect the viewer with him as it's shock value - even today his death is still shocking brutal and gory - was so shocking it opened up a wide vein of sympathy easily.  His death makes the journey of him rediscovering himself even more relatable as all people have taken his journey.  By not killing him off, in this remake, there is no journey for him to regain his humanity instead what the story feeds is it's criticism of big business as being after nothing but profits - humanity be damned.  I'm sure everyone has this feeling of big business trying to take their life away. 

No you haven't, neither have I.

The one thing I did like about this movie was the acting of Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman who for the most part helped this movie to be better than the sum of its parts.  Their characters, as they portrayed them, made them even more interesting than any of the main characters and the actors who played them.  It just goes to show you having really good actors can lift up even side characters versus the new, good looking actors who have about as  much personality as a MTV music video. 

This movie is bigger, louder, and loaded with more action, which seems to be the mode of operation for any Hollywood movie now-a-days.  As they hope all the spectacle and explosions will mask the fact there isn't really anything going on in the movie.  The end result of this movie is that the producers took a movie that had something to say and turned it into just another Hollywood agenda pushing movie.