Robocop is a copyright of Orion Pictures
Paul Verhoeven's Robocop gives the viewer an excellent perspective on a late 80s cultural obsession with violence, drugs, and urban decay; to a certain degree, it is difficult to dissociate this portrayal of almost irrational American fears of war and decay (partially associated with the Cold War time period) from Verhoeven's stereotypical exaggerated satire of violent and ambitious American life. If you were like me and my friends, you were obsessed with this film when it was first released in 1987. Those were the days of ground-breaking action films, Wrestlemania, and Nintendo Power. Looking back at Robocop, it is easy to see how revolutionary of a film it was; frankly, there had never been a big budget film like Robocop before. And, in terms of its place in the canon of robots in film, Robocop represents a sharp departure from the typical portrayal of robots in film, being much more similar to what is typically seen in films of Japanese or other Asian origin. It almost should not be interpreted as "robot film" at all and more as purely science fiction. Robocop stars Peter Weller in the title role.
Murphy before he becomes Robocop
Robocop begins with a portrayal of the city of Detroit in the near future: a place and era obsessed with news reports of extreme criminal activity, a violence which has managed to seep into daily life with gory games and television shows (reminiscent of the film Running Man). The critically important Detroit Metropolitan Police Department is controlled by OCP, a large corporation involved with military and civil engineering projects. OCP plans to solve Detroit's crime problem with the release of a crime-fighting robot called ED-209, but the company is faced with a huge loss of investment when the robot is revealed to be dysfunctional when it kills an OCP employee. An ambitious executive brings forward a contingency plan to the company president, which consists of a robot/cyborg prototype, all that is needed is a test subject. Enter Alexander Murphy, a recently transferred cop who takes over for a murdered police officer. While following a group of bank robbers, Murphy and his partner are cornered and Murphy appears to be killed. After flatlining in the Emergency Room, Murphy's body is donated to OCP, where it is used to make Robocop.
Murphy after he's been gunned down
Robocop causes quite a stir when he is revealed to the other police officers, although he quickly becomes popular in crime-ridden Detroit. Robocop is doing exceedingly well in stopping crime in Detroit, but things take a turn when Robocop has a dream about his old life as Murphy and suddenly remembers who he is and who killed him. Robocop begins hunting down the gang that gunned him down and who are partly responsible for the crime spree in Detroit (the gang is headed by Clarence Boddicker, played by the unlikely Kurtwood Smith of That 70s Show fame). Meanwhile, the executive that promoted the Robocop program is attacked and killed in revenge by Vice President Jones who favored the ED-209 model. Eventually, Robocop has a showdown with ED-209 whom he defeats, but he cannot take down Jones, because there is a directive in his programming which commands that he cannot attack OCP employees. To override this directive, the OCP president fires Jones on the spot, in front of Robocop, who promptly kills him.
As stated above, Robocop can be interpreted as an important member of the canon of robots in film, but it does not resemble the other films in its class. Rather than a portrayal of Man vs. Machine that is ubiquitous in this genre, Robocop portrays the synethesis of Man and Machine in a symbiotic relationship that is similar to the treatment which this subject typically receives in anime and manga, and very atypical for American films. Although the ED-209 robot is portrayed as the archetypal brutish machine with no capacity for understanding or emotion, Robocop is given a sympathetic portrayal and manages to be as much Man as Machine, in spite of his appearance. Indeed, Robocop is portrayed in a more endearing fashion than the humans in the film, almost allowing robots or intelligent machines to be approached as something palatable for our future, again not unlike robots in Japanese films/anime. In part, this is done by the occasional designation of Robocop as Murphy, making him less robotic to the viewer.
The ED-209 robot. This one is pure robot, not cyborg like Robocop
Rather than rejecting the notion that robots may be needed to establish order in a violent America, the film seems to accept it with the implication that Man alone may not be enough to accomplish the task. Very different from the usual Ayn Rand/government is evil images that we usually see in the genre. Perhaps this is due to Verhoeven's origins in Europe? In his films, the emphasis seems rather to be on the evil corporation than the evil government and that is very clear in Robocop. Robocop is recommended to anyone and everyone, although it is not for the faint of heart.
