Review: 'RoboCop' remake really, really ... meh

My expectations going in to the new “RoboCop” movie were pretty low to begin with as I walked into a matinee show yesterday.

                I didn’t read any reviews or anything like that, but some of the recent TV spots and the PG-13 rating didn’t do much to get my hopes up.  

                So it’s not exactly accurate to say I was disappointed by what unfolded. In a lot of ways, I got pretty much what I expected, which adds up to my “meh” feelings about this one.

                It’s 2028 and OmniCorp is a giant, Halliburton-y corporation specializing in robotics, more specifically in drones built for warfare. The drones have mostly worked in the Middle East, so it wants to bring the technology home to America.

But the American people don’t like the idea of putting life or death decisions in the metal hands of machines, at least not American lives anyway because duh, so Omni’s CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) decides to meet everyone halfway, by sticking a man – or parts of one – in a robotic suit.

                Just so happens that right around that time, Officer Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is critically injured by a car bomb in the line of duty. In an effort to give him a second chance, his wife (Abbie Cornish) signs Murphy’s body over to Omni, thus giving us RoboCop.

                The biggest problem I had with this remake is one that was nagging me after watching a few of the movie’s trailers. Even the good ones didn’t seem to have a big bad, supervillain-type. If you knew the old movies, they you could guess that Omni would fill that role in some way, but the trailers weren’t pushing anything.

Socio-economic and moral impact of drone warfare in post-modern America: And Robots, yo

The “Robocop” remake and I have a long and winding history.

                When the news broke that a remake was in the works, my initial response was something along the lines of the sound you make when you accidentally hit yourself below the belt. You know what I’m talking about fellas. Sometimes you get a little carried away when you’re talking with your hands and bad things happen.

                I grew up with “Robocop.”  That’s an absolutely terrifying thought considering the bone-numbingly graphic things that take place between the opening and closing credits of that movie, but it’s true.

                I was allowed to watch people get melted by toxic waste, get torn to shreds by machine guns and have their arms shot off at close, bloody range, as long as I promised I didn’t say any of the bad words.

                Also, I had all the toys.

                Sure, my beloved parents’ priorities may have been slightly askew, but I never turned into a serial killer or even just a regular killer. So if you’re looking for a case study to prove that media violence doesn’t lead to real world violence, get at me dawg.

                Anyway, that shiny metal so and so (happy mom and dad?) still holds a special place in my heart, so I wasn’t thrilled with the notion of a remake. Some things are best left alone.

                Casting news began to filter out and my ears perked up the way a dog’s would if it heard a dinosaur skeleton fall apart in a museum.