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).
That bimodal passion is the first clue. People didn't dislike this movie; they felt betrayed by it.
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. robocop 2014 imdb
Immediately after release, the film hovered around . Over the next decade, it has slowly climbed to 6.1 . Why? Because the film’s primary crime was not being the 1987 movie. As time passes, a new generation of viewers—who don’t have the original burned into their nostalgic cortex—is discovering the 2014 version as a standalone piece of near-future cyberpunk.
You don’t. And the internet—specifically IMDb—made sure everyone knew it. These new reviews praise the sleek production design,
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 .
Why? Because the 2014 film made a fatal error: it took the premise seriously. Verhoeven’s RoboCop was a vicious satire of Reagan-era capitalism, media sensationalism, and dehumanization. The 2014 version, directed by the brilliant Brazilian filmmaker behind Elite Squad , tried to make a slick, post-9/11 allegory about drone warfare, corporate control, and the military-industrial complex. One of the most-cited complaints on IMDb’s user reviews is the rating. The original was famously unrated (but essentially an R). The 2014 version was a PG-13. For a character who famously asked, “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me,” a bloodless, shaky-cam execution felt like a betrayal. In 2024, it feels like a documentary
Today, the 2014 RoboCop sits at a modest on IMDb, based on over 280,000 user ratings. For comparison, the 1987 original stands at a towering 7.6 . But a deeper dive into the data and the film’s trajectory reveals a story less about failure and more about a profound misunderstanding of audience expectations. The Curve of Disappointment (And Its Secrets) Let’s look at the IMDb breakdown. The 2014 film’s rating histogram is a bell curve skewed left. The largest single voting block (approx. 18%) gave it a 6 , while nearly 15% awarded a perfect 10 . But crucially, almost 12% gave it a 1 .