Review of RoboCop (1987) by Russell F — 07 Nov 2011

There's no room for directors like Paul Verhoeven in Hollywood these days, and it's a shame. If you're a huge fan of old school practical effects, gratuitous violence, and a plot that doesn't take itself way too seriously, you're probably about as fed up with what's hitting the theaters as I am.

My first exposure to Verhoeven's work was Total Recall, an extremely underrated action film from 1990. It was a pretty big deal back in the '90s, and it typifies a style of film making that just doesn't exist today. In fact, Total Recall's getting the ubiquitous remake, and instead of black comedy and ultra violence, we'll be getting kid friendly, PG-13 Colin Farell and plenty of safe CG blood in slow motion, whether we like it or not.

I bring up Total Recall to draw a comparison between the new and the old action flick, Robocop representing a no frills, ass kicking uncle that no one ever invites to the reunions. Sure, you probably know about Aliens, Commando, Predator, Terminator, etc (Arnold was the face of the Hollywood Blockbuster, before Will Smith took over). Robocop is just a good, underrated film, with plenty of that 1980's charm. It's a great movie, not the best actioner out there, but damn good just the same.

Verhoeven's films (Kassar deserves a mention as well), were all about machismo, ass kicking, and making things seem big, but he managed to make science fiction interesting, somewhat believable, but still fantastical. Now it might not be a treat to watch a 1987 Ford Taurus predominantly featured and driving around in future Detroit (back on Robocop again, sorry for the jumps), but at the time, Robocop seemed to present a palpable near future scenario. Through the use of news ads and product placement, a device he used in Total Recall, Verhoeven was able to convey a believable context for the story to take place. By presenting a believable situation, Verhoeven's characters are able to seem more grounded and realistic. Verhoeven pulled off the future almost exactly opposite of what Ridley Scott had done with Blade Runner in 1982.

But the story and context aren't meant to be the focus of the film, it's Robocop. Robocop's armor is actually pretty cool, in an anime/ comic book kind of way. An interesting scene I can recall would be when Robocop's helmet takes a bullet right to the eye piece, making his right eye exposed. This small clip seems like a direct tribute to an anime I've watched in the past, and if I can recall it, I'll go back through and add the reference. There's also a walker/ mech kind of robot, also a bit like something from Robotech, Macross, or Ghost in the Shell. And the best thing about these machines as that they're all done for real. The walker is animated in stop motion, which looks especially good seeing as how it gives the mech a more robotic kind of movement. The Robocop's suit is all real too, and elaborately constructed. I never noticed the amount of detail put into the leg joints until I just recently saw it. The Robocop is pretty cool, and a bit of his design can be seen in Master Chief, from Halo, especially in the chest piece. Deus Ex: Human Revolution borrowed quite a bit from the film as well, right down to the ability of being able to reach through a wall and twist a guy's neck.

Also, a side note, I made fun of Timecop in an earlier review. I noticed that the vehicles in the future segments look almost identical to some of the vehicles in the Mass Effect series.

But back on to Robocop, I've noticed there's quite a bit more to this film than just the suit and the explosions. There's a random scene of a stop motion dinosaur running through town during a commercial within the film. Later on, a bad guy gets doused in radioactive waste, becoming a mutated abomination. These two scenes specifically seem a bit out of place, as they play out a bit like ideas borrowed from horror films, but seeing them again it seems more like a tribute to B movies. They're both classic little throwbacks, and it's these little nods that give Robocop a bit of that '80s charm. Also, Robocop is a strangely phallic film. The sports car featured as a joke spoofing the American Dream, the 6000 Sux, has a small reference to having the ego massaged by owning a fast car. A bit of a stretch, but bare with me. The film features several penis related jokes, many of the bad guys have Dick, or Richard, somewhere in their names, and during the final scenes, when the bad guys go toe to toe with Robocop, they're carrying extremely long, angular rifles. There's a bit about a young employee rising in the ranks above one of his superiors, a conversation about egos taking place in a restroom, and there's an 'almost rape scene' where a guy gets shot in, yup, the gonads. I noticed quite a few ego related jokes in Total Recall as well, but who knows, I could just be over analyzing it.

Peter Weller, the guy in the suit, actually has a few good moments with the camera when the bullets aren't flying. Before he gets taken out by thugs, Peter Weller plays a run of the mill cop who just wants to get the job done a be a good Dad. These scenes of Murphy before he becomes Robocop are pretty short, but it does an effective job of making me like the main character. This is important too, as throughout the rest of the film, until the very end, Weller's character is all badass, and it would have been harder to empathize with him had Verhoeven not established his character early on.

Anyway, this reviews getting a little out of hand.

RoboCop's a damn good science fiction film. Watch the first one if you're flipping through Netflix, but don't bother with the sequels. It's a film that's greater than the sum of its parts, and somehow above the genre it likes to consider itself a part of. I'd give it a solid 88, but for the purpose of this review I had to round up.