TORONTO — The reboot of RoboCop stomped into theatres this week — 27 years after the original.
Shot primarily in Toronto and nearby Hamilton in 2012 (with some extra scenes completed at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre), it stars Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) as the titular crime-fighting cyborg.
Also in the cast are Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish and Canada’s Jay Baruchel.
Does the re-imagined RoboCop blow away the original or should it have never been made? Here’s a look at what some critics are saying.
“Remaking a classic is a thankless, some would say pointless, task,” wrote Tom Huddleston of Time Out London. “You’d be hard pressed to find anyone outside of the production team who ever thought this reboot of Paul Verhoeven’s still flawless 1987 action movie was a good idea.”
WATCH: John Paul Ruttan talks RoboCop
The new version, Huddlestone added, is “a slicker, shinier, admittedly inferior affair.”
He praised the movie’s strong cast, but felt the action sequences are weak.
“The pace is too frenetic and the camera too shaky to hold the attention,” wrote Huddleston. “The climax is particularly poor, involving a lot of running, shouting and blasting, then it’s over.”
At Variety, Guy Lodge also had positive words for the cast — especially Keaton, who is “a reserved, genuinely off-putting villain,” and Oldman, “whose tender ruefulness … does a good deal of the film’s emotional legwork.”
READ MORE: What the critics are saying about other recent movies
The Associated Press critic Jake Coyle opined the new RoboCop has “some clever ideas and better acting” than the original while also “sanitizing any satire with video-game polish and sequel baiting.”
Alonso Duralde of The Wrap also brought up satire.
“It’s not a dark satire, it’s not ultra-violent, but it’s not much else instead except a competent but unexciting sci-fi action movie with a few good ideas,” he wrote.
“You don’t have to love Paul Verhoeven’s wickedly satirical and extravagantly violent 1987 original to be left lukewarm by the new RoboCop remake. Despite some half-hearted stabs at a big idea or two — is the title character a cyborg or merely a machine that thinks he’s a man? — we’re left with a competent but not very exciting movie about mechanized warfare and corporate irresponsibility.”
Duralde complained about underwritten characters and “logy pacing.”
He added: “At nearly a full two hours … this new RoboCop tests the patience and never really justifies its own existence.”
At the Los Angeles Times, Betsey Sharkey said RoboCop — “the movie and the man” — seem a little dazed and confused.
“The sci-fi side hasn’t evolved much. And the thrill? Well, most of the thrill is gone,” she wrote.
“Although the movie isn’t a complete disaster, it’s not your father’s RoboCop either.”
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune liked RoboCop better than another recent made-in-Toronto reboot.
“Unlike the recent, empty-headed Total Recall remake, this movie comes at you with an idea or two, as well as every available gun blazing,” wrote Phillips.
Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News asked one simple question: “Whose bright idea was this?”
He called it “a misguided failure — not only because its retooled half-man/half-machine hero now has emotions, but also because its ‘fear the machines’ message winds up feeling creaky.”
Neumaier added: “Robocop should be melted down for scrap.”
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