Misfit Robot Daydream: Robocop (1987)

Robocop

I love Frankenstein movies (see my reviews of the original Frankenstein, and it's latter day successor Deadly Friend for some examples). I also love weird sci-fi and violent action movies. So naturally, I'm a big fan of Robocop.

What the Robocop Saw

Robocop tells the story of detective Frank Murphy, a Detroit cop who is murdered in the line of duty, and then brought back to life as Robocop, a hybrid of man and machine, designed to work as a robotic crime fighter for the Detroit police department. Robocop is supposed to be more machine than man, with all of his memories of life as Frank Murphy erased. But slowly, Murphy's mannerisms, figures of speech, and eventually, his memories, begin to re-emerge. Robocop then struggles to regain his humanity, while hunting down his own killers.

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

Peter Weller is fantastic as Robocop / Frank Murphy, giving a Karloff-quality performance. He basically plays three characters in this film. First as Frank Murphy, an average Joe police officer, father, and husband. Next, as Robocop, an unemotional robot programmed to be enforce the law. And, finally, as a hybrid of the two, as he struggles to reconnect with his humanity.

Battle Damaged

Director Paul Verhoeven, fills the film with violent and bloody action scenes, but also with a sly sense of humor. Verhoeven seems to parody and criticize the commercialization of violence in American pop culture, while at the same time reveling in it. This is something he would take to an even greater extreme in his later film Starship Troopers.

Murderous Stooges

All in all, I would rank Robocop as one of the best sci-fi action films of the 1980s, alongside other off-beat classics such as Total Recall and They Live.