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RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)
I grew up watching RoboCop 2 play on TV over and over, but I never did watch the first movie. Some may consider it a loss. I consider it lucky I get to review the movie free of that dubious pair of nostalgia goggles, moreso because I liked it a lot. Then again I grew up watching Terminator 2: Judgment Day over and over on VHS before I watched the first movie, and thought it subpar by its sequel's standards. Maybe there's something to that.
The movie is set in near-future Detroit (not that you would know that unless you read it elsewhere: movie doesn't tell). There's this evil corporation, Omni Consumer Products, which is honing in on a military contract. Dick Jones (Ronny Cox, playing the role of the mirthless, amoral exec he would later carry over to Total Recall) puts together a demonstration for a high-end enforcement droid, a kind of miniature AT-ST. He singles out some guy, gives him a gun and activates the droid, which orders the armed man to drop it. Drop he does, but the droid keeps counting back and mercilessly guns down the poor bastard in a spectacular squib fest.
I watched the scene in complete disbelief.
It's funny on a number of levels - funny because of the sudden ramp of excess in the face of trivia, funny because machines should be logical, funny because of the rich moral dissonance that inhabits the one room. Some people cringe in terror, others facepalm in irritation. The movie's tone is set and you probably didn't even see it coming. Anyway, a hotshot exec (Miguel Ferrer) takes advantage of the fiasco and ushers in his own project: to cybernetically alter human beings into robo(tic) cops and enjoy the best of two worlds.
[Img_Inline width="350" height="180" Caption="" align="left"]http://i62.tinypic.com/hsvp79.jpg[/Img_Inline]
This is where rookie cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) steps in. He's on his first day of duty in Detroit and him and his partner Anne (Nancy Allen) are chasing after a raucous gang of '80s creeps helmed by one Clarence Boddiker (Kurtwood Smith in a surprisingly vicious, vulgar role). They separate and Murphy is brutally dismembered limb by limb with shotgun blasts before Boddiker blows his brains out. He doesn't quite flatline, if you'll believe that, is resurrected by OCP as RoboCop and promptly sets off to patrol the streets 24/7.
As RoboCop, Murphy speaks with a metallic monotone, his every move is underlined by whirrs, his mouth becomes a rictus that only reacts to pain or confusion. No doubt they cast Weller for his slender figure, pouty lips and Batman chin, but credit to the man for his portrayal of RoboCop. It's the C-3PO school of good all over: you don't stop to think about the dude inside the costume. Weller's body language never betrays the character. Think about how easy it would have been to fluke the concept, how silly it could have looked. And RoboCop does look silly from time to time, but that's always within the context of a silly world, with silly businessmen and silly commercials. Think of that beginning scene and how perfectly it sets the tone for this movie as a parody.
[Img_Inline width="350" height="180" Caption="" align="right"]http://i60.tinypic.com/256tr88.jpg[/Img_Inline]
The other half of the credit would have to go to make up artist Rob Bottin, the wizard of latex prosthesis. Bottin began his work a long, long time ago in a set far, far away on Star Wars and from there went on to concoct the amorphous, pulsating titular nightmare from The Thing, later had fun with masks in Total Recall and Mission Impossible and has more recently worked on grittier pulp like Se7en and Fight Club. The list goes on. The RoboCop suit comes with iconic gadgets like the built-in holster inside Murphy's thigh, a retractible fist-spike he uses for hacking (and otherwise) and your typical '80s electric grid-based scanner for eyes. It actually still looks pretty good, largely because Verhoeven doesn't show off. It's used to channel Murphy's transformation and existence as a machine, not as an FX selling point.
Then there's a very good scene where Murphy takes his visor off and we see him in all his (in)humanity. There's a great scene earlier on where he tracks his previous home which once housed his wife and child. It's now abandoned, but RoboCop reconstructs his past life through visual flashbacks spawned from the emotional cues that lie scattered around. The movie doesn't delve a whole lot on how human or inhuman Murphy now is - in fact, if the cyborg is even Murphy at all - but it does slow down for a couple of poignant moments of melancholia. They don't develop into much of anything, at least not until the second movie, but hey, they work.
You have to treasure movies like this. You treasure the handmade craft and the political irreverence and the daredevil skips in tone. Weller's good as the pained, confused creature - for all intents and purposes a newborn - and the bad guys have jolly fun chewing up the scenery. The movie doesn't tone down the violence and doesn't shy around the satire. It never compromises.
Here's to a good remake, please.
RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)
I grew up watching RoboCop 2 play on TV over and over, but I never did watch the first movie. Some may consider it a loss. I consider it lucky I get to review the movie free of that dubious pair of nostalgia goggles, moreso because I liked it a lot. Then again I grew up watching Terminator 2: Judgment Day over and over on VHS before I watched the first movie, and thought it subpar by its sequel's standards. Maybe there's something to that.
The movie is set in near-future Detroit (not that you would know that unless you read it elsewhere: movie doesn't tell). There's this evil corporation, Omni Consumer Products, which is honing in on a military contract. Dick Jones (Ronny Cox, playing the role of the mirthless, amoral exec he would later carry over to Total Recall) puts together a demonstration for a high-end enforcement droid, a kind of miniature AT-ST. He singles out some guy, gives him a gun and activates the droid, which orders the armed man to drop it. Drop he does, but the droid keeps counting back and mercilessly guns down the poor bastard in a spectacular squib fest.
I watched the scene in complete disbelief.
It's funny on a number of levels - funny because of the sudden ramp of excess in the face of trivia, funny because machines should be logical, funny because of the rich moral dissonance that inhabits the one room. Some people cringe in terror, others facepalm in irritation. The movie's tone is set and you probably didn't even see it coming. Anyway, a hotshot exec (Miguel Ferrer) takes advantage of the fiasco and ushers in his own project: to cybernetically alter human beings into robo(tic) cops and enjoy the best of two worlds.
[Img_Inline width="350" height="180" Caption="" align="left"]http://i62.tinypic.com/hsvp79.jpg[/Img_Inline]
This is where rookie cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) steps in. He's on his first day of duty in Detroit and him and his partner Anne (Nancy Allen) are chasing after a raucous gang of '80s creeps helmed by one Clarence Boddiker (Kurtwood Smith in a surprisingly vicious, vulgar role). They separate and Murphy is brutally dismembered limb by limb with shotgun blasts before Boddiker blows his brains out. He doesn't quite flatline, if you'll believe that, is resurrected by OCP as RoboCop and promptly sets off to patrol the streets 24/7.
As RoboCop, Murphy speaks with a metallic monotone, his every move is underlined by whirrs, his mouth becomes a rictus that only reacts to pain or confusion. No doubt they cast Weller for his slender figure, pouty lips and Batman chin, but credit to the man for his portrayal of RoboCop. It's the C-3PO school of good all over: you don't stop to think about the dude inside the costume. Weller's body language never betrays the character. Think about how easy it would have been to fluke the concept, how silly it could have looked. And RoboCop does look silly from time to time, but that's always within the context of a silly world, with silly businessmen and silly commercials. Think of that beginning scene and how perfectly it sets the tone for this movie as a parody.
[Img_Inline width="350" height="180" Caption="" align="right"]http://i60.tinypic.com/256tr88.jpg[/Img_Inline]
The other half of the credit would have to go to make up artist Rob Bottin, the wizard of latex prosthesis. Bottin began his work a long, long time ago in a set far, far away on Star Wars and from there went on to concoct the amorphous, pulsating titular nightmare from The Thing, later had fun with masks in Total Recall and Mission Impossible and has more recently worked on grittier pulp like Se7en and Fight Club. The list goes on. The RoboCop suit comes with iconic gadgets like the built-in holster inside Murphy's thigh, a retractible fist-spike he uses for hacking (and otherwise) and your typical '80s electric grid-based scanner for eyes. It actually still looks pretty good, largely because Verhoeven doesn't show off. It's used to channel Murphy's transformation and existence as a machine, not as an FX selling point.
Then there's a very good scene where Murphy takes his visor off and we see him in all his (in)humanity. There's a great scene earlier on where he tracks his previous home which once housed his wife and child. It's now abandoned, but RoboCop reconstructs his past life through visual flashbacks spawned from the emotional cues that lie scattered around. The movie doesn't delve a whole lot on how human or inhuman Murphy now is - in fact, if the cyborg is even Murphy at all - but it does slow down for a couple of poignant moments of melancholia. They don't develop into much of anything, at least not until the second movie, but hey, they work.
You have to treasure movies like this. You treasure the handmade craft and the political irreverence and the daredevil skips in tone. Weller's good as the pained, confused creature - for all intents and purposes a newborn - and the bad guys have jolly fun chewing up the scenery. The movie doesn't tone down the violence and doesn't shy around the satire. It never compromises.
Here's to a good remake, please.