RoboCop

José Padilha's updated remake of Paul Verhoeven's cynical 1987 sci-fi crime-fighting/greed-corruption satire is set in 2028. Law-and-order news commentator Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson) reports that OmniCorp is testing its latest robotics technology to enforce the law in Tehran, but bemoans the fact that politicians in the “robophobic” U.S. are adamantly opposed to non-human policing, a movement led by adamant Sen. Herbert Dreyfus (Zach Grenier). Recognizing the need for a “moral judgment” element, OmniCorp's devious CEO, Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), tasks conflicted scientist Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) and his team in a Chinese lab with interfacing a human brain into a robot. Enter critically injured Detroit cop Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), whose grieving wife (Abbie Cornish) hesitantly grants permission. Within three months, Murphy is reformulated as a powerful, motorcycle-riding cyborg, with a brain rewired to follow artificial intelligence rather than his own human impulses. But Murphy's humanity begins to dominate his programming, and he is determined to apprehend his murderer. Unfortunately, Brazilian director Padilha's first English-language feature is a heavy-handed, mind-numbing film that consistently undermines its intriguing existential premise with mechanized mayhem. Optional. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include deleted scenes (4 min.) and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is an “Engineered for the 21st Century” production featurette (29 min.), “OmniCorp Product Announcement” ads (4 min.), and bonus DVD and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a small extras package for an underwhelming remake.] (S. Granger)