Review of RoboCop (1987) by Phil H — 21 Oct 2011

Brutal and truly rock hard, the action in this is so damn extreme, violent and gross yet its just sooo darn good! Verhoeven is the 'over the top' gore action master with this his first foray into the blockbuster genre with plenty of dark humour and wickedly devilish characters that fill his distopian visions.

Rob Bottin hit the bigtime with his contribution to the film with the now legendary Robo suit, a marvellous piece of imagination and workmanship that even today looks flawless, solid, sleek, modern and quite realistic as if it could actually work.

Everything about the film is near perfect from the unknown cast of the time, not many can compare to Smiths evil emotionless portrayal of 'Boddicker', to the gritty visuals which gave a real sense of a serious thriller. The effects today are a tad scruffy looking for sure but still hold up well, they actually blend in with the gritty dirty look pretty well whilst the set pieces are also still impressive with some great explosions, gun fire and stunt work.

Thought it was a fluke at first but Verhoeven came back to prove he was the man with a few other top notch adult action fests, but can anything top Robo? a nasty graphic novel adaptation with a stunning score if ever I saw one even though it wasn't an adaptation. Epic sci-fi.