Review of RoboCop (1987) by Calum B — 07 Feb 2014

Paul Verhoeven's "Robocop" looks and sounds a lot like James Cameron's "The Terminator" (1984) on initial glance, with a mechanized, half-man/half-machine creation placed inside an ultra-violent action plot.

The key difference is: whereas Cameron doesn't have a satirical bone in his body, Dutch director Verhoeven does, and transforms "Robocop" into a fine-tuned blend of futurist comedy and riveting action violence.

Detroit cop Murphy (Peter Weller) is ambushed and brutally executed by a gang of thugs (headed by Kurtwood Smith!); left for dead, he is seized upon by a corporate creep (Miguel Ferrer, patenting his sleazy screen persona) who transforms him into the titular character--a seemingly perfect and unstoppable crime-fighting machine.

It goes without saying that there are more than a few complications, and when Robocop suffers flashbacks of Murphy's death, his world is turned upside-down. Verhoeven's sense of frenetic action direction is matched by the incisive satire of corporate politics, where money-hungry vultures like Ferrer and Ronny Cox subsidize gangsters and drug manufacturers; similarly, the vision of future-media (while outdated with its distinctly '80s fonts and graphics) possesses a sarcastic, desensitized attitude that is ironically fitting (the malfunction of a satellite that laser-fries 100 from space is shrugged off as no big deal).

..and could there be a bit of foreshadowing to our SUV-obsessed populace that the car everyone wants is an SUX 6000? It may look like a conventional sci-fi/action flick on the surface, but "Robocop" has an intellectual pulse that makes its thrills all the more satisfying.