One could certainly argue that the worse possible thing that a movie can be is unsure as to what, exactly, it wants to be. Unfortunately for the recent remake of RoboCop, that's the one aspect that stops it from working as both a remake and as a reboot of a once successful franchise. The basic plot is the same as the 1987 version: Detective Alex Murphy, wounded beyond incomprehension, is selected as a candidate for a new project led by a doctor played passively by Gary Oldman. As half man, half robot, he will police the street as... well, RoboCop. The results are noticeably muddled - though the plot tries to be respectful of the source material, all of the irony is lost and director José Padilha is left with an inferior product that doesn't know whether or not it's supposed to be making fun of itself. That's not to say there's zero fun to be had here, although it's safe to say there's not a single memorable action scene in the bunch. For a movie that seems so desperate to say something, it's near on impossible to come away knowing what that something is; it could have been a lot worse, but it's no patch on the original.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
