WATCH: The RoboCop remake trailer is proof that RoboCop didn't need a remake

The original RoboCop is a classic of the 1980s: Bloody, goofy, and laced with a surprising satirical streak that makes it all but impossible to separate from its era. RoboCop was also an enormous hit that spawned sequels, video games, numerous TV spin-offs, and a crowd-sourced campaign to build a statue in Detroit. Given all that success, there was only one thing for Hollywood to do: Remake it!

The RoboCop remake stars The Killing's Joel Kinnaman as Alex Murphy, a cop who is turned into a crime-fighting cyborg after he is critically wounded in the line of duty. "We need to give Americans a figure they can rally behind," says Michael Keaton, playing a sketchy CEO who approves the project. From there, the trailer devolves into tired, Philosophy 101-level musings about free will and humanity over a series of gunshots and explosions.

This trailer does throw in a few flailing nods to the original — Murphy briefly dons a suit with the same color scheme as the suit in the 1987 original, ED-209 makes a brief appearance, and the video ends with Murphy saying, "Dead or alive, you're coming with me." But all those nods do is make this RoboCop trailer look distressingly similar to the slick, unnecessary, and instantly forgettable Total Recall remake that limped into theaters last summer.

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RoboCop doesn't hit theaters until next February, and it's possible that this trailer has just managed to cobble together all the dullest parts from the actual film. But judging from this trailer, the so-called "future of law enforcement" might have been better off staying in the past.