Robocop (Robocop (DVD))

Member Name: DavidJay

Product:	Robocop (DVD)
Date:	31/08/08 (17 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Witty, incisive, exciting and totally unique.

Disadvantages: None.

Christ allegory, social satire, protest film, blinding sci-fi action extravaganza - Paul Verhoeven's masterful 1987 Robocop is all of these and more. The tale of an inner-city cop killed in the line of duty and subsequently resurrected as the titular part-man / part-machine uber-enforcer, Robocop is the sharpest of Hollywood's sci-fi / action epics of the 1980s / early 90s by a long shot, besting even John Cameron's The Terminator and Verhoeven's own Total Recall.

His second Hollywood-produced feature following a handful of hugely successful (both critically and commercially) Dutch productions (most notable of which being 1983's The Fourth Man and 1977's Soldier Of Orange), Robocop set Verhoeven on a path he has trodden, to greater or lesser success, ever since - satirical, deeply ironic, incredibly stylish pictures masquerading as run-of-the-mill genre fare.

More so even than the hilarious and razor-sharp Starship Troopers, Robocop ruthlessly dissects the melding of the corporate and the cultural, taking pot-shots at, amongst many other things, advertising masquerading as art, the influence of big business interests on law enforcement and the marginalizing of the human in favour of profit-swelling technologies.

Whatever way you approach it, Robocop is almost inexhaustibly rich. Viewed as a comedy, it provides no end of pitch-black laughs. As an action adventure, it is ridiculously exciting (and excessive, particularly in the blood-drenched Director's Cut). As a social satire it is by turns deeply depressing and thought-provoking. As a Christ picture of the Bride Of Frankenstein or Superman Returns sort, it is constantly inventive and rewarding.

The best way to approach it, of course, is how it is intended - as a mind-blowing synthesis of all of the above and so much more.

News of an Aronofsky-helmed remake continues to flitter out from Hollywood, but it is nigh-on impossible to imagine how anyone - even if that anyone IS the person responsible for Pi - might improve upon a single frame herein.

Summary: The best sci-fi action picture of the eighties, and so SO much more than that.