There is a cornucopia of action scenes in this movie, so the Arnold Schwarzenegger demographic won't be disappointed. Guns of every type are deployed and powerful semi-automatic pistols are the least of them. There are heavily armed robots weighing a ton that walk with reverberating thumps. There's a van with a murderer at the wheel that embeds itself into a huge tank labeled "Toxic Waste" and we see the driver melt before our eyes. And then there's Peter Weller as the half-human cyborg cop, ripped apart by bullets, reassembled with electronic components by villainous Ronnie Cox who heads the OCP corporation.
When this first showed up on television I caught a few minutes of Weller's titanium-coated figure blasting some people to pieces and thought, "Oh, (expletive deleted), another comic strip hero brought to life." But, having just watched it through, I think it's rather more than just another mindless superhero story. Neither the director, Paul Verhoeven, nor his two writers ever went anywhere after this, but they hit the ball with "Robocop" as typical action movie, black comedy, and social commentary.
The opening is hilarious. It's a satire on the evening news. Two handsome, cheerful faces -- one bland guy and one Leeza Gibbons who looks like she could eat a man alive -- run through the news of the world in the near future -- riots here and there, police strikes, a war at the Mexican border, and so on. Cut to a commercial for some heart transplant business. Some huckster with silvery hair, a television actor's voice, and a white coat and stethoscope takes us through the corporation's offices, telling us we get to choose our own heart at a discount price, even "the Jarvik model," and he grins and holds up a model of the artificial heart, which looks like two pink plastic concertinas glued together. "And remember -- we care." Another commercial advertises the new Model 6000 "Sux" car, which boasts 8.2 miles to the gallon. Later, the news anchors tell us about a tragic incident in which dozens of satellites forming a missile shield ("the Peace Platform") have gone awry and struck the earth with lasers, killing more than one hundred people -- a human tragedy.
And who built the lasers? OCP. "Hell, we practically are the military," remarks Cox. Everything is being privatized. "The military/industrial complex" has become "the militaryindustrial complex." The corporation runs everything. Hospitals, construction, social control, security, "urban pacification", energy, the whole magilla.
And OCP makes worse mistakes than the government, if that's possible. At a board meeting, Cox introduces a two-ton super robot that will replace human cops. To demonstrate, he has a board member hold a gun. The robot orders him to put down the gun, giving him fifteen seconds to comply. The frightened suit complies but somehow the robot continues its countdown. The two dozen other board members dive out of the way as the robot blasts the innocent victim to bloody shreds. "A big glitch," somebody mutters. Nobody mentions the dead man. It's just that the failure makes the company look bad.
The basic plot has Peter Weller, who is only half a man, slowly recovering his memory and his identity. As he goes about obeying orders and trying to enforce the law, he's smitten by all sorts of objects and weapons. He's not entirely invulnerable either. Like Achilles, he has a vulnerable spot -- his lips and cheeks -- that never seem to suffer any damage. And he's human enough to bleed when his armor is punctured. By the end, he's removed his helmet so that we can see Weller's hairless face and part of his head. He's recovered his memory completely too. He answers to the name of Murphy and even smiles.
A dreadful thought occurs to me at this point. With it's sour view of privatization and corporate culture, in some sectors of social space this is going to be interpreted as socialist propaganda. That's not actually the case, though. OCP is run by the avuncular and well-meaning old Dan O'Herlihy. The flies in the corporate ointment are Ronnie Cox, Miguel Ferrer, and the smarmy henchmen they hire to do their wet work and their cocaine running. The henchmen are led by Kurtwood Smith, who has never done anything on screen but lead henchmen. When you see Kurtwood Smith headed your way, you know there's trouble. You just don't know whether it will be prolonged and debilitating like prostate cancer or quick and painless like a severe stroke. The modern screen is full of splinter-group villains. They've included Russians, the IRA, and the CIA. Not the originals but some violent cabal within the group. Let's not offend anyone who might buy a ticket.
Still -- inside this prototypical, titanium-coated, two-ton action movie behemoth there is a humanitarian trying to get out. And I get down on my knees and grovel in gratitude that the writers and director had the decency never to let Weller's half-human face show any tears, not even during the moments that were nearest the sentimental.
When this first showed up on television I caught a few minutes of Weller's titanium-coated figure blasting some people to pieces and thought, "Oh, (expletive deleted), another comic strip hero brought to life." But, having just watched it through, I think it's rather more than just another mindless superhero story. Neither the director, Paul Verhoeven, nor his two writers ever went anywhere after this, but they hit the ball with "Robocop" as typical action movie, black comedy, and social commentary.
The opening is hilarious. It's a satire on the evening news. Two handsome, cheerful faces -- one bland guy and one Leeza Gibbons who looks like she could eat a man alive -- run through the news of the world in the near future -- riots here and there, police strikes, a war at the Mexican border, and so on. Cut to a commercial for some heart transplant business. Some huckster with silvery hair, a television actor's voice, and a white coat and stethoscope takes us through the corporation's offices, telling us we get to choose our own heart at a discount price, even "the Jarvik model," and he grins and holds up a model of the artificial heart, which looks like two pink plastic concertinas glued together. "And remember -- we care." Another commercial advertises the new Model 6000 "Sux" car, which boasts 8.2 miles to the gallon. Later, the news anchors tell us about a tragic incident in which dozens of satellites forming a missile shield ("the Peace Platform") have gone awry and struck the earth with lasers, killing more than one hundred people -- a human tragedy.
And who built the lasers? OCP. "Hell, we practically are the military," remarks Cox. Everything is being privatized. "The military/industrial complex" has become "the militaryindustrial complex." The corporation runs everything. Hospitals, construction, social control, security, "urban pacification", energy, the whole magilla.
And OCP makes worse mistakes than the government, if that's possible. At a board meeting, Cox introduces a two-ton super robot that will replace human cops. To demonstrate, he has a board member hold a gun. The robot orders him to put down the gun, giving him fifteen seconds to comply. The frightened suit complies but somehow the robot continues its countdown. The two dozen other board members dive out of the way as the robot blasts the innocent victim to bloody shreds. "A big glitch," somebody mutters. Nobody mentions the dead man. It's just that the failure makes the company look bad.
The basic plot has Peter Weller, who is only half a man, slowly recovering his memory and his identity. As he goes about obeying orders and trying to enforce the law, he's smitten by all sorts of objects and weapons. He's not entirely invulnerable either. Like Achilles, he has a vulnerable spot -- his lips and cheeks -- that never seem to suffer any damage. And he's human enough to bleed when his armor is punctured. By the end, he's removed his helmet so that we can see Weller's hairless face and part of his head. He's recovered his memory completely too. He answers to the name of Murphy and even smiles.
A dreadful thought occurs to me at this point. With it's sour view of privatization and corporate culture, in some sectors of social space this is going to be interpreted as socialist propaganda. That's not actually the case, though. OCP is run by the avuncular and well-meaning old Dan O'Herlihy. The flies in the corporate ointment are Ronnie Cox, Miguel Ferrer, and the smarmy henchmen they hire to do their wet work and their cocaine running. The henchmen are led by Kurtwood Smith, who has never done anything on screen but lead henchmen. When you see Kurtwood Smith headed your way, you know there's trouble. You just don't know whether it will be prolonged and debilitating like prostate cancer or quick and painless like a severe stroke. The modern screen is full of splinter-group villains. They've included Russians, the IRA, and the CIA. Not the originals but some violent cabal within the group. Let's not offend anyone who might buy a ticket.
Still -- inside this prototypical, titanium-coated, two-ton action movie behemoth there is a humanitarian trying to get out. And I get down on my knees and grovel in gratitude that the writers and director had the decency never to let Weller's half-human face show any tears, not even during the moments that were nearest the sentimental.