RoboCop: Film Trilogy (1987-93)

RoboCop (1987)

Dir. Paul Verhoeven

I don't know how it was in the rest of the movie-watching world, but in my small corner of it the RoboCop poster was an almost permanent fixture in VHS rental stores in the early 1990s, and consequently I'd an image burned into my brain of how I thought the film's protagonist would be onscreen long before I saw the actual film.

As it turned out, despite the B-Movie-esque title and violent and gimmicky exterior it exceeded my youthful imagination, mostly because lurking beneath the imagery is a semi-sophisticated drama staged by director Paul Verhoeven and brought to onscreen life by a perfectly cast Peter Weller in the title role.

I use the term 'semi-sophisticated' because parts of it haven't aged well, particularly the OTT comic book villains, but the scathing script and emotional heart of the work more often than not make up for any failings elsewhere.

Dedicated cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) gets transferred to a Detroit precinct. On his first day on the new streets he gets paired with officer Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen) and the duo respond to a call that changes Murphy's life thereafter. It's a violent film, but Verhoven at that time had the skill and talent to make the emotional threads of the story its equal. The violence gets people's attention, especially in the brutal Director's Cut, but it's the heart that makes the story work.

And like I stated above, it's Weller's skill set that makes the RoboCop character as good as he is onscreen. The role called for an unusual type of stoicism that he nailed perfectly. His movements in the suit are wonderful, precise and somehow piteous; compare them to the movements of the folks who filled the role after him to see subtle but important differences. The mechanical servo sound that accompanies the turns of his head, etc, lend an almost plaintive feeling to his actions.

The RoboCop character seems to have been influenced by Judge Dredd, in both style and responses; e.g. the scene from which this page's footer picture is taken is a very Dredd-like one.

The villains also seem to take their cues from the comic book genre, but not the same source, they're more American comic book villain than British. Alas, as much as I enjoy seeing Kurtwood Smith and Ray Wise being bad, the street antagonists are the weakest aspect of the film.

Scenes showing RoboCop's POV have low resolution scan lines that don't look very good on HD equipment, and nor does the VT style news footage and advertisements that add satirical colour to the script, but they're supposed to be of lesser quality, so it's not too much of a problem. The stop-motion of OCP's scary enforcement droid (ED-209), however, looks fantastic still.

A quick word on the music score by Basil Poledouris. The main Robocop theme in particular is one of his finest moments, for me, second only to his work on Conan the Barbarian (1982).

RoboCop 2 (1990)

Dir. Irvin Kershner

Given how the previous film ended, you'd think that part two would be a cinch to write, but things went in a whole other direction.

Actors Peter Weller and Nancy Allen return to their respective roles, but Verhoven is absent, replaced by Irvin Kershner, which was like replacing caviar with Marmite.

The story was penned by American comic book writer Frank Miller, according to whom was significantly bastardised. (His original story was later adapted into a nine-issue comic series, but I've not read it.)

While it has a few moments that are well-conceived, it's mostly pretty terrible and gets increasingly worse as it slogs on and on.

Omni Consumer Products are once again the bad guys behind the scenes, pushing Detroit to breaking point so that their urban redevelopment project can be seen in a more positive light. The corporate manipulators facilitate the rise of a new designer drug and limit the struggling police force's ability to combat it by cutting funding.

As a fan of stop-motion and hand-built animatronics I feel obliged to point out that both of those feature and are pleasingly effective, and the black humour of the original is present, but much of the production beyond those elements feels cheaper by comparison. It's less refined in almost every way; the kid is annoying; Nancy is underused; the environments are too well-lit, sucking all the moody drama that should've been present, etc. It's a dire sequel.

RoboCop 3 (1993)

Dir. Fred Dekker

Part three is another Frank Miller story that got reportedly changed, and it's almost as bad as part two. Almost. It's diluted crap, less violent, semi-redefining the character as a more kid-friendly protagonist, but it isn't the soul-destroying drudgery that the previous film was. In this case, crap beats slog.

Nancy Allen stayed on, but Weller didn't, meaning the Robo role was recast. Actor Robert John Burke does okay in the shiny metal suit, but unfortunately the story requires more 'Murphy-ness' than before, and Burke isn't as good at being Murphy.

Omni Consumer Products are still around but are experiencing a minor crisis. Controlled now by a foreign power, they push ahead still with the New Detroit ideal, using the privatised police force as their own nefarious workforce, relocating civilians from their homes in a blatant Nazi-esque manner. In their eyes Robo's moral code makes him an enemy of 'progress', putting him on the wrong side of the 'law'.

It has Mako in a small role and CCH Pounder in a larger one, both of whom can sometimes make at least some part of a bad movie good, but while RoboCop 3 is less wretched than RoboCop 2, it's not something that needs to be seen. I detest the term 'popcorn movie', but that's what it is.

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