Robocop (1987)

[Neville]

Plot: In the near future, the crime is rampant in old Detroit. In a final attempt to stop crime, OCP the firm that now own Detroit police, plans to introduce the ED-209 robot. However, after a private demonstration goes awry an OCP excutive pushes his own pet project instead. Robocop, half man, half robot, all cop, is born.

Comments: A few weeks ago I spoke (lenghtily) of "Robocop 3", a film for which I have mixed feelings. I tried to decipher what worked on it and what didn't, among other things. So much thinking about a film starring a robotic policeman couldn't do me much good, but it did have a positive result. I decided it was time to give the original film in the series -and still the best one- another go. After all, it's one of my favourite films ever, and I hadn't seen it for years.

It's been an iluminating experience. To watch it after "Robocop 3" helps understand the many differencies in tone, ideas, approaches and results of both teams. "Robocop" is, for starters, many things. It's admirable that the writer Ed Neumeier and Paul Verhoeven managed to cram so many ideas in what is one of the better paced films I've ever seen. "Robocop" is an urban revenge film (one could think about it as "Death Wish" on steroids), a rehash of "Frankenstein", a satire on corporate America (and a good one: as the same type of business management has extended over the world the film is even more prophetic now than it was in 1987) and B-movie with a silly gimmick, something about a robotic cop in a silly armour.

But most importantly, the film is brilliant at all those levels. It's no secret that Ed Neumeier and Paul Verhoeven are very talented people, so it's not surprising that they did well what all the other people couldn't get right in the sequels. The satire, for example, doesn't just serve as a transition between the action bits, but permeates the whole film. The criminals and the OCP members behave alike, like children incapable of any empathy with their victims, yet intoxicated with their own gigantic power. When Bodicker's band murders Murphy, thus setting the plot in motion, their attitude is not very different from children who turment animals for fun. Even more outrageous than the extreme gore in the scene (even more so in the Director's Cut) is the casual attitude of the gang members, who make jokes and complain they've run out of ammo while the bloodied and dismembered Murphy tries to stand up. And even the policemen, arguably the most moral people in the film are prone to manipulation and blind behaviour: when asked by OCP senior Dick Jones to destroy Robocop, the just obbey, without trying to figure out what's going on.

Even the concept of Robocop itself is part of this satire. He's certainly no superhero. It's the pet project of a suit, nothing else. He isn't built for its usefulness, but because it represents the idea the suits want to project to the public, that they care about crime stopping. What use could he have in a normal world? He's slow, clumsy and poorly designed (i.e. its creators never thought that it could have nightmares). Even his ability as a policeman is debatable: just after his deployment he is shown using overkill to stop situations as common as a convenience store robbery or a rape attempt. Later, when he does prove do be both unstoppable and lethal when hunting down Bodicker's gang members, it could be argued that it's because Murphy is taking over the reigns. The sequels got this wrong by eventually turning Robocop into a real superhero, one that can destroy bigger robots than him (in "Robocop 2") and even fly (in "Robocop 3").

Which brings us to the last point: Murphy / Robocop. The sequels never got this right either, did they? They never completely understood how Rococop should talk and act, how much of Murphy and how much of OCP programming was in there. This resulted in Robocop acting increasingly dumber and sillier with every sequel. Here Neumeir and Verhoeven take the simple approach, and they are right. The film is about Murphy becoming Robocop, then becoming Murphy again. That's why he chooses to identify himself as Murphy as the film ends, and also why he decides to get rid of his helmet during the last act. Listen carefully to his dialogue in the junkyard, for Christ's sake. That's not Robocop talking, it's Murphy, even if he prefers to talk about himself in the third person when he asks Lewis about his family. So simple, yet so perfect. Damn those sequels!

[Mr. DS]

This film I think is one of the most violent endeavors ever.  The Murphy death scene alone pushes so many envelopes that nothing has really disturbed me in a film since initially watching it.  I should point out this was in fact one of the first R-rate films I've ever watched by myself growing up. I guess I didn't waste time jumping right into the extreme stuff.

With that said, I highly agree with your comments on satire.  Watching it as adult years later made me realize the subtle tongue in cheek jokes the film serves up.  Especially the commercials during the newscast.

[Doggett]

Nuke 'Em. Get them before they get you

Great film, great review.

Well done.

[Mr. DS]

Lets not forget the "I'd buy that for a dollar" guy.   He rules, why I don't know but if it were a real show I'd watch every episode.

[Neville]

This film I think is one of the most violent endeavors ever.  The Murphy death scene alone pushes so many envelopes that nothing has really disturbed me in a film since initially watching it.  I should point out this was in fact one of the first R-rate films I've ever watched by myself growing up. I guess I didn't waste time jumping right into the extreme stuff.

When I was 10 I accidentally stumbled into that scene on TV. I don't think I've ever been as shocked as that in my entire life.

[Trevor]

This film was actually banned for a while in South Africa, finally being released with a 'No Persons 2 - 18' age restriction. Our wonderful censor board, how we miss you..........................not.

Talking about DS's comments on the commercials, I'm sure John Landis appears in the 6000 SUX ad: that could be him running backwards, pointing and screaming. 

[American_Jedi]

Lets not forget the "I'd buy that for a dollar" guy.   He rules, why I don't know but if it were a real show I'd watch every episode.

LOL!! Over the years, I've actually made it one of my personal catch-phrases!! I think it's hilarious when I say it and people don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

[Trevor]

Lets not forget the "I'd buy that for a dollar" guy.   He rules, why I don't know but if it were a real show I'd watch every episode.

LOL!! Over the years, I've actually made it one of my personal catch-phrases!! I think it's hilarious when I say it and people don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

Welcome to the site, AJ. 

[American_Jedi]

Lets not forget the "I'd buy that for a dollar" guy.   He rules, why I don't know but if it were a real show I'd watch every episode.

LOL!! Over the years, I've actually made it one of my personal catch-phrases!! I think it's hilarious when I say it and people don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

Welcome to the site, AJ. 

Thanks, I've actually been reading the film review section of this site for quite a while now but, I figured by registering I could recruit additional resources in putting names to some of the lower-budget, bad films that have been burned into my memory over the years.

[ulthar]

Great essay, Neville.

I have not seen 3, but I watched PART of 2 and couldn't stand it.  Everything that made ROBOCOP work was absent, it seemed.  True, I did not give it a fair shake, but when you set yourself up to follow greatness (as I see the original), you darn well better at least deliver good.

At the risk of sounding too film-school-artsy, I think the violence in the original is itself a character.  This is the only thing that makes it watchable, as horrific as it sometimes is.  I guess by that I mean that the violence is not gratuitous...it's necessary to REALLY understand what is going on in this story.

Clarence Bodicker is one of my all time favorite movie villains.  He's just so...cool, and unpredictably violent.  He never gets pussified, like Darth Vader for example.  We (or at least I) are just as scared of him at the end of the movie as at the beginning.

(Okay, I felt that way about Vader, too, at the end of of Ep IV..but ESB ruined it..once we have the Luke/Father vibe, Vader TOTALLY lost his bite).

The whole dystopia is believable in the ROBOCOP world.  It's not contrived.  It COULD happen...corporate control of the cops, then using them to create a situation motivated by profit?  Heck yeah, it could happen.

ROBOCOP is certainly a personal favorite.  I tend to view sequels of movies as good as this one with a VERY skeptical eye.

[Used Meathook]

Lets not forget the "I'd buy that for a dollar" guy.   He rules, why I don't know but if it were a real show I'd watch every episode.

LOL!! Over the years, I've actually made it one of my personal catch-phrases!! I think it's hilarious when I say it and people don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

TRUTH! I use that phrase all the time...my fellow cinema-geek friends laugh, but my "normal" friends just stare at me like I'm a dumbass.

...it's like the phrase that should replace "That's what SHE said" in my opinion. At least, I use it in the same way. lol

[American_Jedi]

Lets not forget the "I'd buy that for a dollar" guy.   He rules, why I don't know but if it were a real show I'd watch every episode.

LOL!! Over the years, I've actually made it one of my personal catch-phrases!! I think it's hilarious when I say it and people don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

TRUTH! I use that phrase all the time...my fellow cinema-geek friends laugh, but my "normal" friends just stare at me like I'm a dumbass.

...it's like the phrase that should replace "That's what SHE said" in my opinion. At least, I use it in the same way. lol

EXACTLY!!! The whole "that's what she said" (or something similar) retort is precisely when I use it!!

Lucky for you, that you have "cinema geeks" around....I unfortunately have little or none.

On a side note, It's kind of ironic that I don't have more cinema lovers where I'm from because our local theater is one of the oldest, art-deco, vaudville theaters in the country (on the national registry of historic places)....AND SHE'S STILL IN OPERATION.....NO BULL-s**t!!

Believe it or not, the first time I saw "ROBOCOP" was in this very theatre...(epically painted murals, velvet stage curtains and a "pay extra" balcony.

It's SOO SAD that we've let corporatism overtake the culteral essence of what we were meant to be.

As Dennis Miller would say....."Just my opinion, I could be wrong".

[American_Jedi]

The sad thing is, as much as corporate America is winning out, the local jocks of my home-town (of my time & I'm sure their parents before them as well)  keep pushing for the destruction of what we collectively value as AMERICANS.

I feel like a Pilgrim in an UN-HOLY LAND.

[RCMerchant]

Great review,Neville! ROBOCOP is a classic! I freaked when THAT 70's SHOW came out-"CLARENCE! ITS CLARENCE!"
One of my favorite catchphrases from the film (along with the Dollar Guy quote)
"b***hes leave!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W6cT3Tvu9g
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[Neville]

I love the bits where he spits on his confession or he flirts with Dick Jones' secretary. The look in her face is hilarious. IMDB says she's his wife in real life.