Robocop

Rating:
Summary: "I'm not arresting you anymore..."
Review: The first time I watched Robocop i was very disappointed. It was just another bad movie - low on action. Later, I realized I had watched a stong cut version. (Hey, I live in Sweden) It took me a while, but eventually I got my hands on another version - still cut but not nearly as much as the first I saw. All the sudden this was a great, ultraviolent movie. Buy this movie, it is the best buy of your life! Robocop is a strong hero, but not immortal. He blasts bad guys without sparing any life's unless he have to. I'm dying to see "The Criterion Collection"...

Rating:
Summary: Director's cut adds nothing
Review: I would definately have to agree with RL from Canada that the theatrical version of RoboCop is the better choice.All the director's cut adds are very unnecessary extra scenes of violence.As for the movie itself,it's pretty good,and a little funny at times.Peter Weller does a good job as Murphy/RoboCop,and Nancy Allen is good as Lewis.Ronny Cox as Dick Jones,and Kurtwood Smith as Bodiker are both very nasty in their roles.The special effects may look a little primitive,but they're not bad.The music score by Basil Polidouris is great.Overall it's a good movie,but go for the theatrical version and not the director's cut.

Rating:
Summary: Save your money, and wait for MGM's Special Edition!
Review: I bought the criterion edition of Robocop because I've always enjoyed that movie, and wanted to have access to some of the extra features that weren't available in the standard version.

One of the things I noticed first on the package was that it was a director's cut, and had a few additional scenes that were subsequently cut to avoid an X-rating due to its excessive violence.

When I watched this movie, the deleted scenes, or rather the extended scenes, were very apparent. The bad thing was these additional scenes offered nothing to the movie but sickening violence and cruelty.

The first extended scene appeared about fiteen minutes into the movie. It was the scene when the ED-209 malfunctions, and slaughters a man, who was randomly picked to demonstrate the unit's arrest procedure. The criterion version wasn't much different than the theatrical one. The only real difference was that the ED-209 fired about 25-30 extra holes in the executive's body AFTER he'd already been killed.

Murphy's death was greatly extended, and was painful to watch. There was no need for us to see hi!s hand, arm, chest, and half his brain get blown to bits.

More additional scenes appeared near the end, when one of the villains was exposed to toxic waste. In the theatrical release, the guy accidentally steered his van right into a vat of toxic waste. After getting washed out the back door of his van, he staggers around for about two or three minutes, with his skin melting off his bones, before being hit by a car. In the theatrical release, we never actually SAW the car HIT him, we only saw it bearing down on him, before the camera cut to the part where his entrails were splattered all over Clarence's windshield. However, in the criterion edition, you will now see this horrible collision from a side-view, and watch as his head, and every disfigured limb, get torn from his body on impact. I also noticed that the blood on the windshield seemed to be a lot more noticable than the t.v. and vhs editions, which made it even grosser, which I didn't really think was possible.

All in all, I'd say Robocop was a very good movie, especially for its genere. However, I found that the added violence only distracted me from enjoying the story. Some people will get this edition because they've got to have the version the director intended, and its presented in its actual 1.66:1 widescreen format. Those aren't bad reasons, especially if you're a film buff. I just found myself enjoying the theatrical version more. And unlike most DVD's, that separate deleted scenes from the movie, by putting them a bonus section or something, these additional scenes have been seemlessly re-entered into the movie. This print is a 'Director's Cut', and the only way to avoid them is to use the fast-foward.

For those who want this version of Robocop to have the extra features that the original widescreen version lacks, I'd wait just a little while. MGM now owns the company that made Robocop. And MGM will be releasing a newly re-mastered 'Special Edition' of Robocop on DVD sometime 2002 that will surpass the quality of the Criterion Edition for a more affordable price. MGM has also stated it will be re-releasing Robocop 2, 3, back into the market, along with a new boxed-set not far behind.

Rating:
Summary: not particularly very violent
Review: I disdain those critics who feel Paul Verhoeven's nihilistic "Robocop" is in effect NC-17 rated for violence. Come on, I didn't think the movie was very violent at all. Peter Weller's death scene in the beginning was only really offsetting because of its dark, confined setting. I didn't cringe at the sadism displayed by the villains that shot him. I felt their weird antics, especially ER's Paul Mccrane, were phony at best. If it hadn't been for its occasional overuse of four-letter words and gore in the later portions of the movie, this could've passed for a PG-13 rating. I felt bigoted by the MPAA's criticism of the film for its violence. I felt the most violent scenes weren't even worth a hard R-rating. I've seen tons of movies that were more violent. "Robocop 2" was a prime example, as was Verhoeven's subsequent "Total Recall". "Total Recall" was alot more violent, but more importantly, more complex and visually interesting. Astounds me that there were far less controversy surrounding "Total Recall" than "Robocop". Violence aside, the movie was pretty cheesy and dated. I fell asleep halfway through. The movie was basically a retread of better sci-fi action and satire thrillers. The news broadcasters were particularly annoying. They occured so at intervals that they diminished any impact I had for the movie. Another nuisance was not ascertaining to a full extent whether or not Murphy as Robocop retained his identity in the end after dispatching the creeps who murdered him in the beginning. They were led by Kurtwood Smith. I felt his performance was too over-the-top and caricatured. In "Total Recall", Michael Ironside's villain seemed more genuine and less annoying. At least he evoked a little sympathy, especially those scenes after Arnold Schwarzenegger's character shot wife Sharon Stone, whom Ironside's character had amorous feelings. In "Robocop", Smith's character was just plain and simply sadistic and near agony to watch. Overall, "Robocop" is an OK sci-fi opus, but with dated fx and violence definitely tamed by contemporary standards. I just don't find "Robocop" that violent. Most of my friends would agree.

Rating:
Summary: The Only Robocop is the First Robocop
Review: I worked for Ed Neumeier during the development of the first Robocop concept, which owes a little something to Iron Man and Judge Dredd comic books, among other influences. Robocop turned into such a great screenplay that it is often taught in scriptwriting classes in Hollywood. I remember getting calls from Ed (who was also co-producer) on location, worrying that the movie wouldn't become all he hoped for. As it turns out, the movie works just great -- the story of a cop named Murphy who struggles, after being horribly wounded, to maintain his humanity inside a metal shell. Such a touching ending this clever movie has, with the "Old Man" firing the villain (with Robo's help) and then asking Robo, "what's your name, son?" A cheer went up in the theater when Robo replies "Murphy!"

A perfect little gem of an action comedy (yes, a comedy, Ed was very clear about that element), this film was cut slightly for violence to obtain the R rating, and the Criterion DVD offers the opportunity to study the uncut version, notable for two longer scenes: first, when ED 209 malfunctions he doesn't just shoot the hapless young executive -- he shoots and shoots and shoots and shoots him. The scene, as funny as it was in the final cut, is even funnier that way. And of course, there is the more graphic scene in which Murphy is blown apart by the pack of thugs. The so-called X version has additional shots of Murphy's skull blown apart and hand blown off. All in all, a very informative and worthwhile Criterion DVD for the student of this movie, which I thought was out of print, but looks like you can still have it here.

The later films got the emphasis wrong -- the first film spent its entire length focusing on the importance of Robo's human side, called Murphy, and the later films jettisoned the humanity for the Robo character. ... Suffice to say this franchise could be re-invented by studying the first film and getting it right next time. Meanwhile, enjoy the only good Robocop movie here, and see why Paul VerHoeven's career in America really took off afterward (as well as that of Ed Neumeier, Michael Miner, et al).

Rating:
Summary: RoboCop
Review: "Robocop. Who is he? What is he? Where does he come from?" Like all cops, Robocop is a signifier of power, created from its lack: from crime (both as desire for power and as measure of society's powerlessness), from the failure of conventional police to stop crime, from Bob Morton's need for clout in the competitive corporate world of Omni Consumer Products, from OCP's need to control Old Detroit. Where does Robocop come from? Utter helplessness, as Murphy - and with him the myth of American individualism - is turned into Swiss cheese by Boddicker and his gang, (further) dismembered by the medical and corporate establishment, and "reborn" as Robocop: pure video intelligence, identity as screen and switching center (Baudrillard). Created under the sign of sacrifice ("We've restructured the police department and placed prime candidates according to risk factor"), Robo, the image of impenetrability, exists only through the vicious and total penetration of Murphy.

Individualism and the unified subject are swiss-cheesed as early as the credit sequence, when "ROBOCOP," in large block letters, bursts out from the center of the screen, promising the subject as solid, substantial, impermeable. A close look reveals the name to have holes in every letter. Moreover, the camera goes right for - and through - the hole in the center of the central "O." Robocop/Murphy is punctured before its/his story even begins. As the camera goes for the "O," Robocop splits into the conflicting identities of Rob and Cop: personal name/professional function, criminal/law-enforcer.* This prefigures a world of endlessly reconstructed subjects where Murphy becomes Robocop who becomes Murphy again (or does he?), and where cops become cop killers and cop killers end up working for the same people as the cops.

In its assault on the subject, Robocop recalls the paradoxes at the heart of rugged individualism. Given his hopelessly ambivalent relation to authority, the American hero ends up an "individual" in uniform. The pioneer becomes soldier, the private eye becomes cop. In its technoid version, Robocop, the most unique figure in the movie, is also completely manufactured: pure company man. Accordingly, Robo's claims to being "Murphy" at film's end lie in wholesale identification with "T.J. Laser," a high-tech TV hero. The biggest paradox of all is that what little there is of Robocop's individuality - the remnant of "humanity" and "soul" left over from Murphy - is the very thing that enables him to become the most efficient technological weapon in the movie. (ED 209, the machine with no prior human identity, is just not dedicated, focused, "individualist," enough to become the perfect killer cop.) American individualism becomes the final indispensable ingredient in the corporate technification of American identity.

A monument to and of the body, Robocop is simultaneously the denial of sex: the consummate American conflation of materialism and Puritanism. Sexuality is not only denied, it is turned into violence: Robocop as mock rapist, shooting a woman between the legs and having the bullet pass through her dress, emasculating her captor. The replacement of sex by aggression means that (re)birth can occur only through violence, continuing the legacy of American society since the Revolution and Civil War. Murphy becomes Robocop only through brutal murder, followed by violent resuscitation attempts at the hospital (equated, by crosscutting, with his murder) and by a final dismemberment at OCP ("I thought we agreed on total body prosthesis. Now lose the arm"). With the frontier long since closed, and overpopulated urban centers imploding, American regeneration becomes urban renewal. And the new society (Delta City) becomes possible only through the wasting of the old (Old Detroit) with high-powered weaponry such as ED 209 and Robocop. Manifest destiny becomes an inalienable right to destroy existing property merely to build some more.

Significantly, the new never comes - and this gets to the real crux of contemporary American violence. Like American (non)sexuality, it's all deterrence. Normally, deterrence is the creation of ever greater firepower so nothing will happen. In Robocop what is deterred/deferred is not violence but the creation of a new society. In fact the means (violence) and the end (Delta City) are startlingly reversed, as Delta City is merely used to justify the development of killer machines. As Robocop suggests, American society must, at all costs, deter any situation that would invalidate violence.

This too is a means to an end. What ceaseless aggression really defers is not peace but the disturbing revelation peace might bring: that aggression and the enormous American sign system of violent power are, like Robocop, born out of profound and vertiginous lack. The deafening blast of American weaponry keeps Uncle Sam from hearing the silence.

Robocop's self-justifying cycle of aggression turns against itself. The Stars Wars "Defense" system bombs Santa Barbara, killing two former American presidents. The OCP war on crime turns completely internecine: Morton vs. Jones, ED 209 vs. Robocop, Robo vs. Jones. The film's concluding moment is not the eradication of crime in Old Detroit, but the temporary arrest of crime in OCP - eliminating one perpetrator (Jones) but leaving a fundamentally criminal corporate system intact.

In Robocop, the upshot of panic cops, splattered individualism, the American Bod-God, and "deterrible" violence is the self-replicating, self-fulfilling credo of a panic police state: "Somewhere there's a crime happening."

Rating:
Summary: robocop one of my fav's
Review: i love watching this movie it has lots of blood and violence and thats the kind of movies i like i have all 3 movies robo,robo2,robo3.

Rating:
Summary: Good to see ol' Robo again.
Review: It was a pleasure re-discovering Robocop on DVD. Okay, some of the special effects are a little creaky by today's standards, but that's not important. As I felt when I originally saw the movie in theaters back in '87, the film effectively combines knowing, cynical humor (usually directed at the structures of modern society) with a terrific adventure story. Later films by Paul Verhoeven didn't achieve quite as successful a balance between satire and good story-telling (I'm thinking of how the director dressed Neil Patrick Harris, one of the GOOD GUYS in Starship Troopers, in a Nazi-like uniform at the end of that film, effectively confusing or depressing the entire audience), but all the various layers co-mingle nicely in Robocop. The social commentary and satiric asides are firmly in place for those who want to see them, but they never undercut a gripping, involving (and, yes, at times very violent) good guys/bad guys story. The musical score by Basil Poledouris is wonderful, too: there's a memorable main heroic theme, but also several moody and complex sub-themes that illuminate the complexities of the main character. The Criterion DVD is loaded with extras, including a long, detailed article about all aspects of the films's production. It may be going a little far to call Robocop the "greatest science fiction film since Metropolis", as Ken Russell is quoted as saying on the back of the box, but the movie IS undeniably in the upper reaches of the genre. And damned fun to watch, too.

Rating:
Summary: Overrated and nauseating
Review: Generally, a regimmicking of usually-better vigilante/cop action and sci-fi movies; nihilistic and glib comedy with a tacked-on happy ending claiming satire on capitalism (must film-makers and critics rationalise so?); gaping plot holes; generally unremarkable characters, plot and performances (the friendship between Weller and Allen being a rare exception); partially enlivened by slick direction. The appalling sequence in which a jeering gang trap and nearly-dismember Murphy is as stomach-turning and needlessly explicit as anything I've seen in any movie and several other sequences, such as Verhoeven lingeringly recording a man's melting and annihilation in toxic waste, which would be as offensive if not ludicrous, show, as in most of Verhoeven's Hollywood films, a sadistic and pornographic artistry cynically catering to the box office. Insane that this gets by with an R-rating while less offensive violence or simulated sex gets NC-17.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT MOVIE.....GREAT DVD
Review: The first time I saw this movie I was in high school and it mesmorized me.....it still does. A model cop is killed in the line of duty and he is turned in to the ultimate crime fighting machine. He only has two problems: First most of the bad guys are holding political office and second, he just cant seem to shake that pesky human side. It is a classic kill the bad guys plot but there is so much more. First the special effects are great considering this movie was made before the computer effects were as fluid as they are today. Second, Verhoeven adds his usual political and social satire to make this a bit of a thinkers movie. Finally, there is enough action and violence so that you dont have to think if you dont want to. The Criterion Collection people really spiced this up. You get a lot of extras for your buck and the death scenes are unedited (this can be good or bad depending on your preference). I rated it a four rather than five because of the overacting or underacting of the cast(depending on the character). Still... This movie is a must have and worth watching over and over again.