Commonly, the original 1987 RoboCop is thought of as little more than a violent action movie. There’s no denying that element, as the film earned its R-rating in bullets and blood. However, there was more going on underneath the surface of its metal skin than a simple shoot ‘em up. At the time, Detroit hadn’t sunk into its current shell of its former glory and although corporations were on their way to owning the American way, it hadn’t reached the current state of things with a small few mega-conglomerates scooping up everyone beneath them to ensure market share.

And there’s no point in beating around the bush. I’ve looked forward to this reboot about as much as a root canal. It’s seemed like just another franchise from my childhood being retooled for commercialism rather than anything approaching art. Hearing the rumors that director José Padilha was unhappy with the studio making too many of the decisions didn’t help things either. However, after sitting through it all, I’ll admit that current day RoboCop isn’t just a shiny coat of black paint on a nostalgic memory.

Set not too far into the future, the America depicted in the movie has truly become the World Police, with OmniCorp’s robot designs providing “security” around the world and keeping American troops out of harm’s way. The opening scene showing these robots’ effectiveness while deployed in Tehran certainly sets the tone. All of the footage is used as propaganda crying out for domestic deployment of the robots, with Samuel L. Jackson portraying an ultra conservative a la Fox News and blustering fire and brimstone with the most transparent of agendas.

Where the movie succeeds is the casting of the OmniCorp employees; from Michael Keaton as the CEO, to his executives (Jennifer Ehle and Jay Baruchel), to the genius doctor adapting technology to create the titular character (Gary Oldman), and most especially to the mercenary in charge of ensuring the robots were as formidable as possible (Jackie Earle Haley). Each of the actors add a much-needed layer of believability to the picture. Oldman seems like the likeliest of the bunch to stand out but due to underdevelopment of his character’s shifting morality, it’s Haley who steals every scene.

Getting to RoboCop himself, Joel Kinnaman is the actor tasked with trying to fill the giant shoes of Peter Weller and he’s at a disadvantage the whole way. Rather than center his struggle for humanity around the bond between himself and his partner, and the gruesome manner in which he was left for dead, here we have a cop who’s too brash to realize how deep the corruption in the police department until it’s too late.

The story tries to pull at the heartstrings with Abbie Cornish playing the dutiful wife and a son whose sole job is to remind audiences what a great Dad he had because they watched sports together; however, most of this simply ends up padding the runtime. Perhaps most troubling to the film is its resolution. After all of the high-powered action that it takes our hero to get to the final few bad guys, the resultant skirmishes with lesser foes is anticlimactic and loses what steam had been generated.

All that said, the first half of the movie is a surprisingly good action film. I appreciate that it paid homage in spots while also differentiating itself enough to give it some reason to exist. I’m even astonished to find that ensuring a PG-13 rating (to ensure better odds at the box office) didn’t castrate the violence to the degree I feared. It still lacks the punch of the original in that regard but despite a deep desire to tear down another needless Hollywood reboot, if all you want is robots and guns, the 2014 RoboCop fits that bill.

GRADE: C+

RoboCop opens in theaters on February 12, 2014 and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action including frenetic gun violence throughout, brief strong language, sensuality and some drug material.