READERS' CHOICE #31: ROBOCOP (1987)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

9.5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, but only once, and within the last few years

BEST SEQUENCE

RoboCop's first night on the beat; our introduction to ED-209 is also pretty memorable

BEST LINE

"I'd buy that for a dollar"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

92%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"While over-the-top and gory, Robocop is also a surprisingly smart sci-fi flick that uses ultraviolence to disguise its satire of American culture."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"In a dystopic and crime-ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg haunted by submerged memories."

DIRECTOR

Paul Verhoeven

MAIN CAST

Peter Weller, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Nancy Allen, Miguel Ferrer, Daniel O'Herlihy

THOUGHTS

• Man, this is such an entertaining movie
• The violence is indeed extremely graphic, but it's also pretty absurd in both style and amount, letting us know that we shouldn't take it too seriously. Scenes like ED-209 pumping a guy full of lead in a board meeting, or a bad guy driving into a tank of toxic waste, only for his disintegrating body to then explode on a car's windshield after getting run over, in a different movie they might make us recoil in horror or disgust; in RoboCop they're so over-the-top that you can't help but laugh along with the movie. In fact, for level of violence it's not that far removed from something like Ichi the Killer, but RoboCop does more that I like with it
• The ridiculousness of the movie also leads to a lot of affection for the somewhat janky special effects. For example, I love that RoboCop's robotic motions are pretty much shown just through Peter Weller (very capably) popping and locking. I haven't seen the 2014 remake, so I could be wrong, but I would imagine that a more modern movie would lean into CGI or actual robotics in the costuming to make the lead character more believable as a machine. But then you watch this movie, and you realize - who cares if he's not always 100% believable as a robot? It really doesn't matter how convincing it is, because everyone onscreen sells it
• The same could be said about ED-209, very charmingly depicted through stop motion or just by pushing a model down some stairs (one of the funniest parts of the movie). But when people scream and flee from an attacking ED-209, we believe it completely
• As an example of a legitimately impressive and convincing special effect, I'll mention when RoboCop takes off his helmet and we see Peter Weller's face on a robotic head. Although, to balance things out, it's only fair to then mention the least convincing special effect of the movie, the hilariously elongated limbs on the Dick Jones model when he gets shot out of a window (but it's also completely unforgettable and I wouldn't change it for the world)
  
  
• The special effects team was led by Rob Bottin, whose fantastic work we've talked about before (The Thing) and we will again (Se7en)
• Clarence Boddicker and Dick Jones are unbeatable bad guy names, backed up by delightfully villainous performances by Kurtwood Smith and Ronny Cox
• It was really hard to choose a favourite line for this one, as the script is eminently quotable. Also in the running: "Can you fly, Bobby?"; "Your move, creep"; Dead or alive, you're coming with me"; and, of course, "I used to call the Old Man funny names - Iron Butt. Boner. Once, I even called him...asshole."
• Finally, so many components work together so well in this movie, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the man who brought them all together, Paul Verhoeven. It will be his only appearance in these reviews (unless I decide to add another one on a whim), but what a great showing it is. I especially loved all his little directorial flourishes, things like the newscasts and commercials and bad TV shows that interrupt the action onscreen (the commercial for Nukem is probably my favourite), or the POV shots, like RoboCop booting up after Murphy is brought back to life. I haven't seen all of Verhoeven's movies, but I've liked everything I've seen; even Showgirls, which as a movie is completely abysmal, but as a viewing experience is sublime. Am I right to think that RoboCop is Verhoeven's best movie? Or would anyone like to make a case for another contender in his filmography?

Up next: And with that, we've finished another block of Readers' Choice movies, so it's back into the AFI list with The Sixth Sense! And after that we'll be spending a bit more time with M. Night Shyamalan. He may not have the most consistent body of work, but you can't call him a quitter. So we'll be watching a few more Shyamalan movies as well, to be decided by readers' votes