IMDb user Quicksand wrote in a top-voted review: “RoboCop without the gore is like The Terminator without the chase scenes. It’s a corporate product about a corporate product, and it forgot to be angry.” That review has over 2,000 upvotes. According to IMDb’s “StarMeter” and biographical data, the film’s cast is objectively excellent: Gary Oldman (a true chameleon), Michael Keaton (in his post-Academy Award cool-down), and Samuel L. Jackson as a bombastic, Glenn Beck-style TV host. The problem? The man inside the suit.
That bimodal passion is the first clue. People didn't dislike this movie; they felt betrayed by it. robocop 2014 imdb
The IMDb page for RoboCop (2014) is a digital museum of a movie that arrived 15 years too early and 10 million dollars too cheap. It failed as a remake because it refused to be cynical. It succeeded as a think-piece because it dared to be serious. IMDb user Quicksand wrote in a top-voted review:
Joel Kinnaman (of The Killing fame) is a fine actor, but his Murphy is emotionally available, handsome, and conflicted from the start. The 1987 film worked because Peter Weller’s Murphy was a corpse—a thing learning to remember humanity. IMDb’s “Quotes” section for the 2014 film is sparse. The 1987 page is a library of one-liners. You can’t algorithmically manufacture that kind of cultural grit. Here’s the twist that makes the 2014 RoboCop a fascinating case study. Look at the IMDb rating over time . Jackson as a bombastic, Glenn Beck-style TV host
These new reviews praise the sleek production design, the nuanced performance of Gary Oldman (as the guilt-ridden scientist, Dr. Norton), and the prescient themes. In 2014, drone ethics felt like a stretch. In 2024, it feels like a documentary. The 2014 RoboCop is currently the #1,768 top-rated movie on IMDb. That puts it just behind The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and just ahead of Terminator: Genisys . That’s not exactly a hall of fame, but it’s also not the graveyard of forgotten reboots ( R.I.P.D. sits at 5.6).
When José Padilha’s RoboCop reboot hit theaters in February 2014, it did so under the weight of an impossible verdict. The original 1987 Paul Verhoeven film wasn’t just a sci-fi action movie; it was a satirical, hyper-violent masterpiece. How do you improve on perfection?
