One of the biggest problems in the film is the lack of a proper villain. There is a massive Clarence Boddicker-sized hole that becomes distracting the more the film rolls on. Antoine Vallon is identified early on as being a crime boss in Detroit, and when Murphy gets too close, he has him killed via a car bombing outside his home. So there are some similarities between Vallon and Boddicker as both are the catalyst for Murphys transformation into RoboCop. But that is where the similarities end. The problem for Vallon, he isnt given enough screen time for the audience to develop any sort of feelings towards the character. The bombing isnt gruesome enough for you to hate him and when it happens, you dont really have any sort of an emotional attachment to Alex Murphy so again, you dont really care. You know at some point, Murphy will go after Vallon and that happens at the end of the second act. But because you know next to nothing about Vallon apart from him being responsible for Murphys death, the eventual confrontation lacks the emotional payoff it should have had. You know none of his gang members and as they are dispatched, it means nothing to you. Then as the film rushes towards its conclusion, Sellars jumps into the bad guy role and the transition is jarring to say the least. We knew Sellars was motivated by money, but where did we see that he was a man that would happily shoot a family if needed? It's not so much a shock, but more of a cheap trick (no, not the band, never the band). Films like these need a central villain for the hero to overcome. It would have acted as a balance against Murphys not very interesting personal story. But not only was it a missed opportunity, it also gave the second half of the film no sense of direction or focus.
