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Young police officer Murphy (Peter Weller) has just been reassigned to the toughest district of crime-ridden Detroit and partnered with Lewis (Nancy Allen) when the two get the chance to arrest Clarence (Kurtwood Smith) and his gang, the most notorious syndicate of the city - and totally outgunned, the two blow it, and while Murphy is shot to pieces and then killed, Lewis has to helplessly watch the whole ordeal.

In the meantime, OCP, an arms manufacturer in favour with the gouvernment, tries to introduce the ED-209 police robot to the public, but when an initial presentation backfires, Morton (Miguel Ferrer), a young OCP upshot, sees his opportunity to promote his RoboCop program, a program that mends cop and machine, and all it needs is a dead officer to provide the brains to the creature, a dead officer like Murphy.

Murphy is reanimated inside an armoured suit, and while he's deeply traumatized, all that is overruled by his strict crimefrighting programming, and initially he's a total success, and his brutality, and the fact that he's only fighting street level crime instead of going to the roots is outmatched by his sheer efficiency, at least in the public eye. But then he starts having nightmares about his death, and when he first meets Lewis, he starts to remember - and starts to go after Clarence and his gang.

In the meantime, Jones (Ronny Cox), creator of the ED-209 and Morton's chief rival at OCP, has Morton killed ... by none other than Clarence himself, and together with Clarence he plans to create a crime empire that will make them both rich. So when Murphy the RoboCop arrests Clarence, Jones has him out in a jiffy, and even arms him in his fight against RoboCop, while deeming himself on the safe side as a RoboCop cannot harm a OCP officer. But when Clarence is released and RoboCop is under attack from both Clarence's men and the OCP itself, he becomes more and more determined to right a few wrongs on the executive level - even if that means taking on the city on his own ...

Despite being clearly a product of the 1980s in almost every aspect, both visually and narratively, RoboCop stands the test of time much better than most movies of its ilk, mainly for two reasons that couldn't be more diverse: On one hand, on a purely technical level, Paul Vorhoeven is an extremely skilled director, and the whole film couldn't look more slick and exciting, even from today's point of view. Plus, the movie doesn't look away when it comes to the more gruesome stuff, either, making its violence palpable without propagating it. On the other hand, especially for a sci-fi action flick, RoboCop is deliciously subversive, and without taking away from the excitement it can also be seen as social commentary, even satire, and the whole movie's permeated by dark humour that adds an extra layer to the on-screen proceedings only rarely found in genre movies.

In all, essential 1980s cinema that just refuses to grow old.

On a sidenote, later horror fan fave (and a favourite of this site) had a scene in this movie as a topless pizza baker in one of the "I'd buy that for a Dollar"-commercials that was regrettably cut from the final version of the film. You can see her scene (and other deleted scenes) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-X13jOVdWI

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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