Robocop (1987)

Noteworthy

PLOT
In a pessimistic future where capitalism has exhausted all other considerations, an honest cop is brutally tortured by a gang of thugs. He is brought back from death as a murderous humanoid arsenal and donated to the police force by an all-powerful corporation.

REVIEW
"Robocop" certainly made an impact upon its release in 1987. For those frustrated by standard action and sci/fi, which appeared in abundance during the 80s, its honesty and brutality was greatly appreciated.

Now that the special effects are dated, however, and the dark satire has been surpassed by several other features, most noteably "Total Recall" (1989 - director Paul Verhoeven's true masterpiece), what is left is an overly violent, often vulgar and rather standard revenge flick. For first-time viewers in 2008, the social commentary will be nothing new - in fact, I'm racking my brain trying to remember if it was even that fresh in 1987...

Parents be warned: while the special effects are naff, the violence is disturbing, and disgusting, even by today's standards. Contrary to popular opinion, it does not form part of the film's (limited) amusement.

Ken Russell (in Halliwell's, 2008) is quoted praising the film as "the greatest science-fiction film since Metropolis". Rarely has exaggeration reared its ugly head in such a pronounced fashion. Watch it again, Ken.

ELEPHANT STAMPS
None. January 7, 2009

20th anniversary edition

Some extra features on the making of the film with Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, etc. Still a wild ride of a film all these years later. Alot of Phil Tippets stop-motion effects would be CGI today. This edition contains both the original theatrical edition and the extended unrated version. The later is considerably more violent -- particularly in the scene where Boddicker's men shoot up Murphy. Nice performances by Weller (who is now a professor of Roman history at the University of Syracuse, NY), Nancy Allen, Kurtwood Smith (Red on THAT 70'S SHOW) as the utterly vile Clarence Boddicker, Ray Wise, Ronny Cox -- in the first several coporate villain roles he would play like TOTAL RECALL -- and Miguel Ferrer. December 1, 2008

Robocop Gets The Justice He Deserves On This 20th Anniversary Edition!

Back in 1987, I was a fresh High School graduate who already had a vast knowledge of modern day cinema within the Horror and Science Fiction fields. But in that same year I had heard through the grapevine that the company that had released the classic The Terminator was about to unleash another robotic film but with a character on the good side of the Law. And it's title was Robocop. Robocop? Man that sounds corny, my younger self thought. That is until I saw the teaser poster of this half man/half machine getting out of his squadcar, and after that I couldn't wait to see if this film could rival what Orion Pictures accomplished three years earlier with the shaded Arnold.

I was not disapointed.

To put it simply, Robocop was a masterpiece of late 80's Sci-Fi filmmaking. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, at the time an obscure foreign director with a few cult classics under his belt, and starring Peter Weller, who already had an underground classic Sci-Fi film "Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension" on his resume, Robocop features Weller as Officer Alex Murphy, a family-man Detroit cop who thanks to the corruption of a weak police force now owned by an evil corporation by the name of OCP, gets gunned down and killed during the line of duty. However, OCP has been toying with the idea of using robotic ways to rule over crime, but with disastrous results in the machine ED-209 created by OCP executive Dick Jones (a surprisingly casted Ronny Cox). But up-and-comer Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) feels his design of half-man/half machine might work better for the project, and since when Murphy joined the force signed all his rights over to OCP, and was already dead, to make him the project's first creation. And thus RoboCop was born. Along the way Robo stops crime dead in it's path, becomes self-aware of the life that is now no longer his, runs into the gang that killed him in the first place, and tries to end the hidden conspiracy within OCP once and for all.

Where The Terminator successfully gave us an 80's robot film, it had no heart and soul like the one provided in RoboCop. Murphy/Robo is a hero, full of tangled emotions and an obsession of upholding the Law. Sprinkled throughout is a wonderful sense of humor that it seemed only Verhoeven could provide at the time. There truly isn't one part of Robocop that drags or lets you down. From it's funny modern-day News inserts to it's parodying of it's own Reagan-era greed, Robocop is one film that never gets old and after twenty-years still holds up to today, all without any use of CGI through the special effects of Matte Paintings, Costumes, and Stop-Motion Animation. It's been on DVD several times, through companies like Criterion and MGM, but for it's Twentieth Anniversary MGM pulled out all the stops with an edition that blows away any one before it (including Criterion).

Originally housed in a Steelbook casing (current versions come in a standard keep-case with booklet and middle leaf), Robocop 20th Anniversary is a two-disc set featuring two complete versions of the movie, the theatrical and the directors cut extended. To be honest, the difference in time between the two is less than 30 seconds. But within those lost pieces are even more violent graphicness that Verhoeven couldn't get away with the MPAA at the time. It's surprising he got away with what he did because either way, Robocop is one bloody thrill ride. Strangely though, MGM decided to put the theatrical on one disc and the extended on the other, which for a disc released in 2007 seems excessive thanks to modern-day DVD branching that could of had both versions on the same disc. Because of this, it's special features are spread between the two, but these features are definitely worth the purchase alone, and I'm happy to switch discs to see them all. Along with a new entertaining commentary with the crew (a different recording than used on Criterion's), RoboCop 20th also has over twelve new and old featurettes totalling over two hours long. Along with two original 1987 port-over behind-the-scenes & featurettes, four deleted scenes (shot on video for dumping to film as more News inserts), there's also five 2007 new featurettes ranging from a wonderful reflection of making the movie, a great combined interview of the bad guys of the film, and a quaint look-back of how all the now-outdated matte painting and stop-motion effects were created by the original artists today. These alone make this version truly the only version to own. Interviews with Paul Verhoeven, Kurtwood Smith, Ronny Cox, Miguel Ferrer, Ray Wise, and Robocop himself Peter Weller give great and insightful details what it was like being on this set. Not to mention that this version's print is even more remastered than what Criterion or MGM has provided in the past. Skin-tones and black levels have never looked better, all while retaining it's grainy mid-80's filmstock look. Audio is provided in a variety of ways including the original 4.0 mix and a new 5.1 both standard and DTS. In fact, for those that have jumped on the Blu-Ray bandwagon consider that the BD version only has the extended version, the commentary, and a trailer leaving all these great featurettes behind, so if that shouldn't be against the Law, nothing is.

In conclusion, Robocop 20th Anniversary is a must own for Sci-Fi/Action fans of any age. An amazing and original story with some of the best practical special effects ever captured on film, it will entertain future generations to come. While the original never got toppled by it's two medicore sequels and 90's television series, those will never take away from what Murphy gave us in the first place. Highly, highly recommeded.
(RedSabbath Rating:9.0/10) October 25, 2008

Full of Extras!

I've been a fan of this film since I first saw it at a small downtown theater in South Dakota. I'm not a fan of gory or ultra violent films; but this picture, along with its tongue and cheek humor, was like watching a live action adult comic book. With this two disc, 20th Anniversary edition, you not only get a choice to watch the Theater or the Extended Cut of the film, you get plenty of what I always look for when I purchase a DVD; EXTRAS, FEATURETTES & COMENTARY. My favorite was the documentary- "Flesh and Steel": The Making Of Robo Cop. Finally, I like the packaging with its metal box. One thing I didn't much care for was the difficulty of getting the individual discs out of its casing. Plus, they are stacked so you have to take one disc out to get to the other disc. With the hard to release casing; get ready for a project! October 13, 2008

The long arm of the law just got a whole lot longer

You don't really hear a lot about Robocop anymore, but this really was one of the biggest films of the 1980s. For a teenager like me, Robocop was the baddest dude in town back in 1987 - and now, twenty plus years later, he's still pretty much the baddest dude in town. The film really hasn't aged much at all, which came as a pleasant surprise to me. Some of the special effects involving the giant Enforcement Droid (ED-209) aren't impressive as they used to be, and that one shot looking down at someone falling to his death looks absolutely awful, but everything else, especially Robocop himself, works like gangbusters. It's still quite a gritty film, with loads of realistic violence (vintage Paul Verhoeven, in other words). In fact, Verhoeven had to edit out some of the film's over-the-top comic violence just to secure an R rating. Even the political satire and emasculation of an overly exploitative mass media still ring quite true, as we intermittently watch a couple of newscasters smile and laugh their way through one tragic news story after another. And those commercials! The brand new 6000 SUX that gets an impressive 8.2 miles per gallon, all of the stupid "I'd buy that for a dollar!" ads, etc.

In this film's near-future setting, almost everything has been privatized, including hospitals and the entire police department of Detroit (now owned and run by the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products). The Old Man (Dan O'Herlihy) has long dreamed of replacing Old Detroit altogether with his own marketed utopia, but he needs to get crime under control before he can make Delta City a reality. Senior President Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) claims to have the answer - a gigantic, fully automated, heavily-armed Enforcement Droid known as ED-209. Unfortunately, ED's debut presentation runs into a pretty bloody "glitch." In steps Bob "It's All About Me" Morton (Miguel Ferrer) with his own idea of a part-human, part-cyborg super-cop. When newly-transferred Detroit police officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) gets brutally gunned down by the local crime boss and his henchmen, Robocop is born. He's a darn good cop, as many a criminal lowlife in town soon learns, but there's just one problem - he begins to remember his human past, especially his death at the hands of Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) and his gang. Whether or not what is left of Murphy ever recovers a measure of his humanity, though, one thing is certain - the bad guys are going to go down and go down hard.

You'll find a few of the most memorable scenes of the 1980s in this film - the unveiling of ED-209, Robocop's highly skilled shooting of a purse-snatcher using his victim as cover, and the big throw down between Robocop and ED-209. It's a great story with a great script, one that combines humor alongside lots of impressive violence and deep human themes (revenge, humanity, etc.). The acting is also quite good up and down the line, with Kurtwood Smith (best known today as the dad on That 70's Show) turning in a particularly strong performance as a bad guy's bad guy. This could have been nothing more than a high-tech shoot-em-up, and that alone would have made it a big summer box office hit, but Robocop is a much more complex film than you would normally expect, and that is why it continues to stand the test of time very well. This is just a darn good movie any way you look at it.
September 30, 2008

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