In a dystopic and crime-ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop is selected to return to the force as a powerful cyborg, however, he is haunted by submerged memories and hunted by the very crew that near-fatally wounded him in the first place.
Now, I use the word ‘classic’ a lot, sometimes, when I don’t really need to – however, when I say that this is a ‘proper classic’ – I really do mean it.
In terms of concept, story, violence and even comic-violence, this movie broke new and arguably taboo ground back in 1987 and this is fully down to the visionary that is Paul Verhoven.
I remember being an 11 year old kid and some of the guys at school raving about this 18 certificate movie, that was back in the day when the ratings actually meant something, so I thought, I need to get hold of a copy which I duly did.
From the off, this movie grabbed me on some level and I guess as an impressionable 11 year old, there is enough material in there to get under anyone’s skin – and at that age, all me and my mates talked about were 2 scenes – the one where Murphy (Peter Weller) was cornered by the crew led by the wickedly good Clarence Bodiker (Kurtwood Smith) and literally blown to bits, yes you get to see all of it, the other scene was when one of Bodiker’s crew drives a van into a vat of toxic waste – I don’t need to describe how that ended……but I want to, he gets hit by a car and is also left in bits!
So back to this dystopian future where big companies such as OCP run entire cities. It’s a future where criminals are pretty much allowed to do what they want and this is a strategic move by Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) one of the head honchos at OCP, who uses Bodiker’s crew to create trouble so he can provide a ready-made solution in the form of a droid called ED-209.
Cue Robocop to clean up the streets, which is something Dick Jones had not factored into his plan, so he duly tasks Bodiker and Co to get rid of the cyborg and this takes us up to the finale and the now famous acid scene, which is part of a brilliant shoot-out between Bodiker’s crew and Murphy and his partner Lewis (Nancy Allen).
The best thing about this is that as brutal as it is at times, you really should not at all take it seriously as Verhoeven is quite clearly winking at the viewer as we watch his satirical vision of the way human values are changing. The waaaay over-the-top violence of the future is reflected in a blackly humorous style and this coupled with ‘breaking news’ snippets (a concept re-used to good effect by Verhoven in Starship Troopers) adds to the comedic environment.
Overall a brilliant way to spend 90 odd minutes, plus it is one you’ll never tire of watching, like most Verhoven efforts to be fair.