Jose Padilha’s Robocop Reboot Is Officially Going For A PG-13 Rating; My Anticipation For The Film Is Officially Going For A Brand New Low

Oh yes, another news piece I can file under “not surprised, but still super disappointed.”  At this point in time, I can’t say I’m quite looking forward to the Robocop Reboot—well Jose Padilha isn’t a bad choice at all to direct, production woes and some very negative first reactions to the script have left me cold on the project.  And now, we have another thing to worry about when it comes to the new Robocop—as revealed at Comic Con a few days ago, this Robocop will most likely have a PG-13 rating.  Why is that such a travesty?  Well I shall tell you…after the break.
Even though I really enjoyed the first Robocop, I’m not one of the film’s many, many lovers—that said, one of its strongest aspects is the film’s use of violence.  Used both to hammer down the film’s main point and as satirical farce, the original Robocop used blood and gore quite well to establish its tongue in cheek tone.  But from the sounds of it, the new film won’t going for the same angle at all—which pretty much puts the whole Robocop name in peril.  From director Jose Padilha, see him bullshit his way into making this sound like a good thing:

“We were shooting the movie to be seen by the broadest possible audience, which means PG-13. This whole idea about ‘RoboCop’ has to be “R” because the first one was amazingly violent… I never really bought into that. You know, ‘The Dark Knight’ was PG-13, so you can get away with a lot.”

Seriously, does anyone REALLY believe the man who directed Elite Squad was totally fine with a PG-13 rating?  He certainly wanted to make it R, I have no doubt about that.  But then Sony reared their ugly head like they so often have, and now we’re going to get this PG-13 lame version.  You can try to make this sound like a good thing by comparing it to The Dark Knight Padilha, but no one in their right mind is going to believe you.  Man, I miss when Darren Aronofsky was behind this project…you know we would have gotten a kick-ass R rated version then.  But instead, we’re probably going to get something like Terminator Salvation—oh joy.
Starring Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Jay Baruchel, and many others, Robocop will hit theaters on February 12, 2014.  I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

The Source