Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner
Photography: Jost Vacano, Sol Negrin
Music: Basil Poledouris
Editor: Frank J. Urioste
Cast: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Dan O’Herlihy, Miguel Ferrer, Robert DoQui, Ray Wise, Jesse D. Goins
People seem to have some problems categorizing RoboCop. I have always thought of it as a slightly tongue-in-cheek (because patently ludicrous) crime / action show. Wikipedia calls it “science fiction action,” Amazon classes it with the labels “action,” “drama,” and (of all things) “serious,” and IMDb lets loose with a torrent of labels: “cop drama,” “cyberpunk,” “dark comedy,” “dystopian sci-fi,” “gangster,” “one-person army action” (good grief, this is a genre?), “superhero,” “tragedy,” “action,” and “crime.” I was happy to see at least a “dark” comedy in the mix, but I think it’s a real stretch in this perfectly cartoony setting to go for “serious” (never mind “tragedy”).
It’s formally a tragedy and serious because a human being cop, Murphy (Peter Weller), is killed in the line of duty and then surreptitiously and implausibly reanimated as a cyborg with no memory of his humanity. But he is a super-excellent cop, the hope for the near-future Detroit envisioned in the ‘80s to eradicate crime altogether. Director Paul Verhoeven is playing it for laughs all over the place. The lifts from Terminator are obvious, intentionally so. Robocop’s triangle-shaped body is an exaggeration of the ripped male ideal. His thudding footsteps are heard constantly in the sound design when he is on the move. (Note that the subtitles spell it without the capital C for the character and I am following suit.) The fights go on too long and they are too extreme, verging on slapstick. And the fact, in this near-future sci-fi tale—certainly it is science fiction, I’m not sure why I resist that label too—the fact that corporations can steal a man’s body with impunity and do what they want with it is rushed past so willfully it comes to feel like another joke.
People seem to have some problems categorizing RoboCop. I have always thought of it as a slightly tongue-in-cheek (because patently ludicrous) crime / action show. Wikipedia calls it “science fiction action,” Amazon classes it with the labels “action,” “drama,” and (of all things) “serious,” and IMDb lets loose with a torrent of labels: “cop drama,” “cyberpunk,” “dark comedy,” “dystopian sci-fi,” “gangster,” “one-person army action” (good grief, this is a genre?), “superhero,” “tragedy,” “action,” and “crime.” I was happy to see at least a “dark” comedy in the mix, but I think it’s a real stretch in this perfectly cartoony setting to go for “serious” (never mind “tragedy”).
It’s formally a tragedy and serious because a human being cop, Murphy (Peter Weller), is killed in the line of duty and then surreptitiously and implausibly reanimated as a cyborg with no memory of his humanity. But he is a super-excellent cop, the hope for the near-future Detroit envisioned in the ‘80s to eradicate crime altogether. Director Paul Verhoeven is playing it for laughs all over the place. The lifts from Terminator are obvious, intentionally so. Robocop’s triangle-shaped body is an exaggeration of the ripped male ideal. His thudding footsteps are heard constantly in the sound design when he is on the move. (Note that the subtitles spell it without the capital C for the character and I am following suit.) The fights go on too long and they are too extreme, verging on slapstick. And the fact, in this near-future sci-fi tale—certainly it is science fiction, I’m not sure why I resist that label too—the fact that corporations can steal a man’s body with impunity and do what they want with it is rushed past so willfully it comes to feel like another joke.
That’s the way I like to take this movie and that’s the way I enjoy it most. It is bursting with ‘80s cheese—Nancy Allen as Murphy’s former partner, Miguel Ferrer and Ray Wise auditioning for David Lynch, a glowing but washed-out color that transfers well to VHS taping and retaping. More than anything, it has a plot that is so satisfyingly bone-simple you don’t really even need to think about it: Murphy reincarnates as Robocop and proceeds to stop crime. Yes, he kinda sorta comes to terms with his former humanity in a larger pro forma narrative arc. But the main points of what’s in front of us are usually the audacious kinetic violence and the cruelty of the bad guys.
Robocop has various computerized filters feeding him visual information to enable him in his work, screens now familiar from the movies, comic books, and video games, belching data and swiveling in and out of focal points. My favorite is a dimly lit screen with the green computer letters: “CRIME IN PROGRESS.” Yeah, crime in progress. That’s his destination. Please take him there immediately. It’s just amazing what computers can do for law enforcement, isn’t it.
The return of Robocop’s memories of his previous life is largely provoked by his returning memories of the evil crime gang that finished him off in a warehouse, literally blowing off his limbs and virtually dismembering him with shotguns and such, while laughing like hyenas. The leader is the grouchy dad from That ‘70s Show (Kurtwood Smith). My impression is that Verhoeven calibrated scenes like this one, blocking and timing them to run just a little too long, just a little too brutal. You’re numbed by it at first, and in that numbed state the comedy emerges (hence the qualifier “dark”).
Or maybe it’s just a way of coping with the intense visual assault. Verhoeven, of course, has the chops to go way over the top—see also Showgirls, Starship Troopers, Total Recall—and also to play his material more subtly, albeit always with the same sense of perverse force lurking nearby, e.g., Basic Instinct or Elle. RoboCop belongs with his blatantly outrageous work, of course, liberating itself to go absolutely caustic on innate corporate malevolence. An early scene, for example, involves the demo of a first-generation robot, a clanking monstrosity out of a ‘50s sci-fi movie, a larger and more deadly version of the design from the Lost in Space robot. It malfunctions and not merely kills the volunteer in the exercise but absolutely slaughters him at methodical length, leaving a gaping hole in this chest. Oops—that’s the way it goes around here.
Nearly 40 years on, RoboCop appears to be as popular as ever. It’s got a 7.6 rating by 307,000 people on IMDb and the only free streaming versions at my disposal had embedded ads. I take it that means enough people are still looking at it to make the exposure for advertisers worthwhile (most when I looked were about some pharmaceutical product). I still like RoboCop too, it is practically my definition of a perfect popcorn movie—fast-paced, entertaining, interesting story, solid action. Plus, I swear, a sly but constant sense of humor that works.
Robocop has various computerized filters feeding him visual information to enable him in his work, screens now familiar from the movies, comic books, and video games, belching data and swiveling in and out of focal points. My favorite is a dimly lit screen with the green computer letters: “CRIME IN PROGRESS.” Yeah, crime in progress. That’s his destination. Please take him there immediately. It’s just amazing what computers can do for law enforcement, isn’t it.
The return of Robocop’s memories of his previous life is largely provoked by his returning memories of the evil crime gang that finished him off in a warehouse, literally blowing off his limbs and virtually dismembering him with shotguns and such, while laughing like hyenas. The leader is the grouchy dad from That ‘70s Show (Kurtwood Smith). My impression is that Verhoeven calibrated scenes like this one, blocking and timing them to run just a little too long, just a little too brutal. You’re numbed by it at first, and in that numbed state the comedy emerges (hence the qualifier “dark”).
Or maybe it’s just a way of coping with the intense visual assault. Verhoeven, of course, has the chops to go way over the top—see also Showgirls, Starship Troopers, Total Recall—and also to play his material more subtly, albeit always with the same sense of perverse force lurking nearby, e.g., Basic Instinct or Elle. RoboCop belongs with his blatantly outrageous work, of course, liberating itself to go absolutely caustic on innate corporate malevolence. An early scene, for example, involves the demo of a first-generation robot, a clanking monstrosity out of a ‘50s sci-fi movie, a larger and more deadly version of the design from the Lost in Space robot. It malfunctions and not merely kills the volunteer in the exercise but absolutely slaughters him at methodical length, leaving a gaping hole in this chest. Oops—that’s the way it goes around here.
Nearly 40 years on, RoboCop appears to be as popular as ever. It’s got a 7.6 rating by 307,000 people on IMDb and the only free streaming versions at my disposal had embedded ads. I take it that means enough people are still looking at it to make the exposure for advertisers worthwhile (most when I looked were about some pharmaceutical product). I still like RoboCop too, it is practically my definition of a perfect popcorn movie—fast-paced, entertaining, interesting story, solid action. Plus, I swear, a sly but constant sense of humor that works.
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