RoboCop blasting into theaters February 5

Nearly 30 years after giving moviegoers a glimpse of the future, RoboCop is coming back to theaters in February.

While RoboCop a.k.a. Alex Murphy will get several updates compared to the 1987 original, he's still "part-man, part-machine, all-cop."

Columbia Pictures’ new, futuristic thriller also boasts of a powerhouse cast led by Joel Kinnaman (“The Darkest Hour”), Gary Oldman (“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”), Michael Keaton (“Batman”), and Samuel L. Jackson (“Marvel’s The Avengers”), as well as Abbie Cornish (“Sucker Punch”), Jackie Earle Haley (“Watchmen”) and Jay Baruchel (“Tropic Thunder”).

RoboCop, distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International, will blast into Philippine theaters on Feb. 5.

The reboot is set in 2028, with multinational conglomerate OmniCorp at the center of robot technology and trying to force its controversial drones for law enforcement in the US.

OmniCorp sees its chance when Murphy (Kinnaman), a husband, father and good cop fighting crime and corruption in Detroit, is critically injured in the line of duty.

But while OmniCorp envisioned a RoboCop in every city, it never considered there is still a man inside the machine.

Kinnaman, who plays Murphy/RoboCop, gives viewers the psyche of a man "brutally obliged to undergo an extraordinary transformation."

“Alex is a righteous cop and a family man that is trying to do the best he can in a flawed system until some events completely change the course of his life. Then he has to learn to deal with this new reality that is put before him,” Kinnaman said.

Oldman plays Dr. Dennett Norton, the scientist who helps create RoboCop but had to live with compromised decisions as OmniCorp corrupts him.

“Yes, (my character) somewhat corrupted by OmniCorp through the unlimited funding that is offered for my research if I get on board the RoboCop project. So, I go against my better instinct,” he said.

Keaton plays Raymond Sellars, the unscrupulous head of OmniCorp—a villanous role he finds fun.

“There is generally more meat in those characters. I just didn’t want him to be that hand-rubbing kind of villain that wants to take over the world, but when I read this script I found him much more interesting,” he said.

Jackson plays the influential media mogul Pat Novak who has a hidden agenda.

Meawhile, Abbie Cornish plays Alex’s wife Clara Murphy. Cornish finds Clara "strong, caring and compassionate.”

“She is grounded as a woman and very much within herself, embodying a lot of the things I believe women are in this day and age. I was very drawn to her from the beginning, and there was no doubt in my mind about who she was. The film is dealing with the idea of robot versus man and the progression of technology and how far that can go, and my character has to keep the family and their home together and protect her son and whatever it is that they have as much as she can,” she said.

Haley plays Mattox, an expert in robots that is involved in some of the film’s action sequences.

“My character ... is RoboCop’s trainer, (but) he feels that putting a man into the system is a mistake and probably secretly wants him to fail  -- while trying to do his job for OmniCorp as well,” he said.

Baruchel plays Tom Pope, who the actor describes as “a sort of sleazebag marketing executive” at OmniCorp—but a fun character to portray.

“And, as I am a huge dork, the fact I get to show up and see RoboCop is just great. It is so cool!” he said. — VC, GMA News