Well it wasn’t the complete piece of shit that I was actually expecting, but that does not mean that this new “RoboCop” movie is actually good. Just because a movie brings up some ideas doesn’t mean it is actually smart or even tried to do anything, especially if nothing is actually said by the movie. Anyone can stand on a street corner and yell about how “drone warfare is bad!” But that doesn’t mean people would want to stand around and listen to this person yelling for two hours. We get it. Drones can be bad. So what?

Taking the movie as its own thing, ignoring the fact that it is a remake of a beloved classic, “RoboCop” at least has a couple things going for. Set about 15 or so years in the future, the movie starts with some television pundit blowhard named Novak (Samuel L. Jackson) just going on and on and on about the use of drones and droids in other countries for reasons of forced pacification, and bemoaning how Americans are against the use of drones here in America*. And here during the beginning segment of the movie, we get some decent ideas about drone warfare and modern American imperialism, and an interesting and daring sequence in which these drones (including ED-209s) get attacked by suicide bombers, determined to make this attack unfold on a live television, and we even get to see a young kid, inspired by his suicide bombing father, pick up a weapon and go at the drones himself (which was pretty stupid on the kids part). So the movie starts with a literal bang and actually for a second seems like it might go to some interesting places.Continue Reading …