Technology will save the Motor City

ROBOCOP (1987)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Revisiting "Robocop," the ultraviolent 1987 action flick by Paul Verhoeven, is a lot like revisiting a nightmare of a satire that may have lost some of its oomph in its near thirty year inception. In 2014, "Robocop" is hardly as ultraviolent as it once was, and its satiric targets may not strike as sharply as they once did. As a techno action thriller, "Robocop" delivers the goods but it lacks any tangible emotional surface.

Peter Weller is Murphy, a Detroit cop of the future who has been transferred to the worst section of the Motor City. His detective partner, Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), can handle herself better than any cop in the precinct. Trouble brews all over town when cops are killed, gangs dominate the streets and trash and rob everyone - in short, it is anarchy. A corporation by the name of OCP (Omni Consumer Products) wants to fight crime by using advanced robots with strategic commands in their memory banks. Murphy dies in a run-in with bank robbers and narcotics dealers (the leader is played by the frighteningly intense Kurtwood Smith), but Murphy's brain survives long enough to become part of an experiment. Enter Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer), an ambitious OCP executive, who wants a new kind of robot cop - one that has a human brain (although why all human memories have to be erased is questionable - why not just forgo a human brain for an electronic one? But then we wouldn't have a movie). Now Murphy is Robocop, his human face intact but largely consisting of a metal endoskeleton. His instincts slowly become human. And detective Lewis recognizes who the robocop actually is.

"Robocop" does the job of a techno action thriller efficiently, and there is a level of witty satire with regards to TV commercials of the future. Even better is the introduction of the ED-209 prototype robot where a test run goes horribly wrong. The movie doesn't quite cling long enough on Murphy before he becomes Robocop. We see flashes of his past home life but they are infrequent flashes. To Peter Weller's credit, he makes us care for this walking metal contraption with an electronic voice - his body language and his facial reactions elicit a lot of sympathy (compare them to Robert Burke's monotone look in "Robocop 3" and you'll see the difference).

"Robocop" is enjoyably dirty, messy fun (one of the criminals' vehicles hits a toxic waste barrel that can still shock by today's standards). Nothing can beat watching Miguel Ferrer trouncing his OCP rivals, or partying with hookers and ingesting lines of coke. I wish there was more Murphy backstory but why carp when you got Dan O'Herlihy as an "Old Man" CEO?