1987
DIRECTOR: PAUL VERHOEVEN PRODUCER: ARNE SCHMIDT SCREENPLAY: EDWARD NEUMEIER AND MICHAEL MINER STARRING: PETER WELLER (OFFICER ALEX J. MURPHY/ROBOCOP), NANCY ALLEN (OFFICER ANNE LEWIS), DAN O’HERLIHY (THE OLD MAN), RONNY COX (DICK JONES), KURTWOOD SMITH (CLARENCE J. BODDICKER), MIGUEL FERRER (BOB MORTON), ROBERT DOQUI (SERGEANT WARREN REED)
RoboCop
ORION • COLOR, 103 MINUTES
A fatally wounded policeman is transformed into a robotic law-enforcement unit to fight rampant crime in future Detroit.
The killer-cyborg concept James Cameron popularized with The Terminator (1984) is flipped to the opposite extreme in RoboCop, a satire of American culture from Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. As in The Terminator, Verhoeven’s film posits a threatening embodiment of tomorrow’s technology. But instead of a villain, the cyborg is a relatable hero with a surprisingly tender side. Peter Weller as RoboCop incites our sympathy because he is a human victim of corrupt corporate power, a man turned into a machine without his consent. This adds poignancy to the film’s dual trajectories of brutal sci-fi thriller and broad comedy.
RoboCop almost didn’t get made. Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner’s farcical screenplay had been rejected by every major director in Hollywood when Verhoeven read it and was equally unimpressed. “I thought it was a piece of shit,” he bluntly stated in the 2001 documentary Flesh and Steel: The Making of RoboCop. But Verhoeven’s wife, Martine, convinced her husband that the darkly witty script had more layers than he initially saw, from its skewering of corporate culture to its biblical implications. Verhoeven beefed up the story’s Christian motifs, fashioning his lead character into a modern American messiah. When Officer Murphy is killed in the line of duty and “resurrected” as a computerized experiment, does he still retain his soul? The movies had never really tackled this area before.
Humanoid machines have been a science-fiction staple ever since Czech writer Karel Capek coined the term “robot” in his 1921 play R.U.R. In the early years of sci-fi, however, android robots tended to be simple mechanized devices resembling men inside cardboard boxes (which they often were). The Maria android in Metropolis (1927) and Gort the robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) made strides with the complexity of their appearances, and both were key influences on RoboCop’s design: his body armor is a masculine version of Maria’s, while his helmet is a modification of Gort’s. As a product of Detroit, the Motor City, RoboCop also sports a slightly vehicular style, like a shiny Chrysler just rolling off the assembly line.
Though he made it look natural on the screen, Weller spent agonizing months in his unwieldy wardrobe, a rubber and fiberglass suit that took him several hours to put on every morning. Like Logan’s Run (1976), the majority of RoboCop was shot in Dallas to take advantage of the city’s futuristic architecture. Unfortunately, filming in Texas in August and September put temperatures around 120 degrees inside the costume. “Meditation got me through it,” said Weller, who was chosen for his acting ability, as well as his strong jawline—it’s the only part of his body visible as the cyborg. With his eyes obscured and his movements restricted, Weller somehow exudes a discernible sadness when human memories come flooding back into RoboCop’s system.
But the movie is first and foremost a satire. Its near-future setting is a world in which families play nuclear-war-themed board games, a peacekeeping laser misfires from space causing death and destruction on Earth, and the hot new car is a 6000 SUX (it gets eight miles to the gallon). In a none-too-subtle gesture, RoboCop comes equipped with a knife that extends from his fist like a middle finger. Even the violence is so over-the-top it borders on ludicrous. The frequent graphic shootouts earned the film an X rating, which was only changed to R after twenty-two seconds were edited from the release print. To this day, it may be the most violent film ever marketed with a line of toys for children.
Nancy Allen and Peter Weller
RoboCop apprehends a suspect played by Ray Wise.
Verhoeven’s first science-fiction film (he would later helm Total Recall in 1990 and Starship Troopers in 1997) has aged better than many of its contemporaries. It remains relevant (inspiring a 2014 remake) and is considered one of the most prescient of future-set flicks. For one, it anticipated an increased awareness of gender equality in the workplace; the female cops, including Nancy Allen as Murphy’s partner, Officer Lewis, share a coed locker room with the men on the force. Secondly, it predicted the sad economic decline of downtown Detroit, a once-teeming metropolis that experienced its share of setbacks in the years following the film’s release. Third, as the advertisements proclaimed, RoboCop might truly be “the future of law enforcement.” In 2016, Dallas police used a remote-controlled robot to kill a sniper, and in 2017, the world’s first fully operational robotic cop joined the Dubai police force.
KEEP WATCHING
STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997)
I, ROBOT (2004)