ROBOCOP. Directed by Paul Verhoeven; written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Minor; produced by Arne Schmidt for Orion. Starring. Peter Weller, Ronny Cox and Nancy Allen. Rated R (violence, language).
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Robocop is the goriest and most disgusting movie I've seen in a long time. It's also a wickedly funny satire with a whole cast full of interesting good and bad guys. Whether you like it or not will depend on your tolerance for gruesome special effects and black—sometimes outrageously black—humor.
The story is set in some vaguely future time, when America's "old" cities are even more preyed upon by criminals than today. The police force in "Old Detroit" (which is actually mostly Dallas) has been taken over by a mega-corporation. And it's also, curiously enough, being heavily victimized by a sadistic cop-killer.
After a few establishing scenes, the bad guys take out ordinary cop Murphy (Weller) in a shockingly graphic, violent scene. But not to worry, he'll be back soon with the aid of some futuristic robotic hardware as, you guessed it—Robocop.
Weller is adequate as Murphy, especially considering that most of the time he's encased in a metal costume which keeps him almost as hidden as Darth Vader was. His movements, in particular, are uncannily machine-like. Allen is cute, but not quite convincing, as Murphy's supposedly tough partner.
Cox, who Beverly Hills Cop fans know as a kindly, father-figure type, is excellent as Jones, the ultimate corporate villain. All smooth suavity on the outside, he is convincingly cold-blooded and downright nasty when he's riled. Miguel Ferrer is also good as Morton, a younger executive a few rungs on the ladder below Jones. Kurtwood Smith, a more blue-collar bad guy, is equally impressive.
The real stars of Robocop, however, are the special effects people. Limbs are blasted away, bad guys are downed in toxic waste, gas stations explode, heavy-duty armaments create mayhem here and there. There are more violent, and explicit, special effects in Robocop than in a dozen of its competitors.
For all that wild, mindless action, however, Robocop does offer some more subtle pleasures. The main storyline itself is a fine satire of "law and order" extremism. And in addition, the action is often cut by glimpses of this near future time's TV news ("Give us three minutes and we'll give you the world"), inane sitcoms and hilarious commercials.
Both Robocop and Repo Man use media like TV and radio to fill in the background of an extremely bizarre, yet not completely unfamiliar, society. The resemblance isn't just coincidence. Co-writer Miner had a hand in that weird 1984 flick, too. Repo Man, though, was first and foremost a comedy. In Robocop, laughs are not the main idea.
In fact, even some of the best laughs are considerably strained. The circumstances surrounding some of the humor are so unfunny (like violent death, for example) that you may laugh, but you'll feel guilty doing it. Now, maybe the moviemakers intended for the violence to be so out of hand that it would be funny. But I don't see it that way.
Still, a lot of moviegoers will enjoy the humor of Robocop. But its violence is so repellent that I can't really recommend it. It's a lot more interesting than any similar action movie made since Terminator. But it's also a lot more gruesome, disgusting, grisly, repulsive, nauseating.... Well, that pretty much exhausts my thesaurus, but I think you get the general idea.
July 29, 1987