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(This review contains spoilers. You have been warned.)

There's good films and then there's good films that defined a genre. Along with The Terminator, Robocop is considered to be one of the most definitive movies of Cyberpunk, a subgenre of Science Fiction; an exploration of man with machine. Paul Verhoeven's film is brutally violent, funny, and thought provocative. A classic.

It's a scary thought living in the future. "Old Detroit", as it's called, is all about Capitalism and the media, with little regard for the people's lives. The Police Department has become privatized due to financial ruin, and crime on the streets is getting out of control. Enter "Robocop" (Paul Weller), a cyborg police officer built from the remains of slain cop Alex Murphy by Capitalist big-shot Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer).

What the authorities didn't count on, however, was Robocop regaining memories from his previous life. Going beyond the confines of his programming, he begins hunting down the gang of drug dealers responsible for his brutal execution, as well as bringing justice to the greedy company bosses that created him.
 
And that is indeed one of the main points of the film: The proclaimed "Robocop" appears more humane than a majority of the big company bosses do, forcing us, the audience, to examine the values within our own lives. Peter Weller does a great job at convincing us that he's half-human, half-cyborg. He appears almost chivalrous in his liberal stance on humanistic values and the economy, and we grow to love him.

Primarily through its satirical news reports and commercials, the film becomes a social commentary on the media and general capitalist ideals. Although these appear quite humorous, they have a serious intent in outlining the cheap sales pitches of the greedy corporate officials attempting to increase profit margins. One of the running phrases is "I'll buy that for a dollar!" denoting that the people will buy any old rubbish.

Then there is, of course, the violence. Robocop was remarkably bloody for its time, which prompted the MPAA to give it a X-rating. Scenes were deliberately over-the-top in their attempt at making the audience flinch (a style Verhoeven would continue to use in 1990's Total Recall). Murphy's execution scene, in particular, we get to see his hand blown to pieces by a shotgun blast -- this has been fully restored for the Special Edition DVD. This scene isn't just effective in its violent appeal to bloody thirsty freaks, such as myself, but to allow the general audience to feel some compassion for the main character, as well as presenting a very dark concept of the near future.

Indeed, Robocop's concept of the soon-to-be is so plausible that the film could be considered more fact than fiction. Paul Verhoeven's style in Robocop offers a unique blend of comedy, though still maintains a respectable level of intelligence as it builds the film around mangled Capitalist theories.

Having witnessed the fully-restored version on DVD (which includes the explicitly of Murphy's "assassination", ED-209's bloody malfunction, the shootout finale, as well as a number of interesting deleted scenes) it's difficult to imagine how Robocop could've been any better than it was. That's a compliment to how good it (still) is.

(C) Andy Carrington, 2009.