When I was young, everything I knew about Detroit, I learned
from RoboCop. I moved close to Detroit several years ago
and was surprised to find that the real-life city had almost nothing in common
with the movie (well, maybe a little). That doesn’t stop RoboCop from
being one of the most famous depictions of the troubled city—enough that they
are actually going to build a statue of the cyborg protector as a tourist
attraction! Detroit references aside, this
film is one of the most iconic movies from the 1980's and one of the best science fiction movies ever made.
The director, Paul Verhoeven, is known for making
hyper-violent movies with liberal doses of sexual content and biting
satire. He is also responsible for Total Recall and one of my personal
favorites, Starship Troopers. His films are never politically correct and
as a result, are a whole lot of fun. RoboCop is no exception. It’s full of
gore, off color jokes, one-liners, salty language, objectified women (with one
exception) and non-stop action. The
story follows a Detroit police officer named Alex Murphy who has an unfortunate
incident with a local gang and is reborn as RoboCop, who as the tagline states
is “part man, part machine, all cop". It’s actually a very tragic story and Peter Weller, who portrays
RoboCop/Murphy, does a wonderful job giving it a real human element. I am always impressed by how good he is at
conveying RoboCop’s robotic movements and the exoskeleton suit design is
top-notch.
Another interesting aspect of the film is the social commentary running through all of it. Most of it is played off as dark humor, but there are real issues addressed in clever and subtle ways. There are references to the dangers of privatizing government services, corruption of high-level officials, and the gentrification of Detroit. It’s somewhat eerie to see how it parallels the real problems that Detroit faces almost thirty years later. The look of the film is excellent and they captured the gritty, dystopian atmosphere of future Detroit perfectly. The soundtrack is outstanding with a bad-ass, pulse-pounding score rounding out the action.
Another interesting aspect of the film is the social commentary running through all of it. Most of it is played off as dark humor, but there are real issues addressed in clever and subtle ways. There are references to the dangers of privatizing government services, corruption of high-level officials, and the gentrification of Detroit. It’s somewhat eerie to see how it parallels the real problems that Detroit faces almost thirty years later. The look of the film is excellent and they captured the gritty, dystopian atmosphere of future Detroit perfectly. The soundtrack is outstanding with a bad-ass, pulse-pounding score rounding out the action.
-Review by Michelle Kisner