On July 17, 1987, Robocop by director Paul Verhoeven was released in cinemas. The Orion Pictures sci-fi action player made $53 million that summer and launched a franchise. The original review from The Hollywood Reporter is below:
It’s 1991 and Detroit needs a new sheriff. Even a Magnum-shooting powerhouse isn’t up to the job. Motown has taken its reputation as a murder capital seriously and things are now spiraling out of control. Normal cops can’t handle it. The new weapon brought to the city is big, metal, computer controlled and impregnable… Part human/part machine, Robocop can destroy anything in its path.
Likewise, this well-crafted sci-fi action player would have to wipe out huge numbers of corpses at the box office for Orion. While those whose tastes don’t include the spectacle of big machines noisily firing at each other are unlikely to be tempted by Robocopshould appeal and fuel this shocked look at the urban future to action fans.
In Robocop, 31 officers have been killed since a high-tech conglomerate took over the besieged city’s police station. But the big brother company’s latest prototypical security creation (a stubby gun-fisted, metal droid) shoots down one of the company’s top marketing executives. Even in the boardroom, such aggression is considered inappropriate, even for the vile streets of downtown Detroit.
The company decides to scrap the metal sample. But as you might think in all progressive mega-conglomerates, a counter-plan is in the works. Not surprisingly, it was just developed by the company’s most energetic ideas man and the meanest yuppie (Miguel Ferrer). Corporate climber Ferrer has his own crime fighter, whom he calls Robocop. And he just grabbed the latest part to make it work – the fresh corpse of a gunned down cop (Peter Weller).
With a computer memory of a lifetime of law enforcement and lightning-quick reflexes to match his steel muscles, Robocop takes to the streets and wastes the jitters. While writers Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner have concocted plenty of crowd-pleasing scenes of snotballs biting the pavement, Robocop’s shootouts are excessive, repetitive, and if you get right into it, quite routine. In general, the bad guys are designers (baldheads, earrings, chain-wearing bones), except for the movie’s nemesis (Kurtwood Smith), who is quiet and incredibly creepy.
Especially Ronny Cox as a strong business three-headed is intimidating. Still, Neumeier and Miner break down the excessive flow of waste with a searing futuristic satire. Bubble-blowing newscasters (Mario Machado, Leeza Gibbons) talk gleefully about rebels in Acapulco, South Africa’s atomic bomb plans.
But of all the villains in the film, corporate America takes it the hardest. Of all the street slime in the movie, the company sure is Robocopthe most corrupt, despicable monster. This anti-corporate thesis hits with the gleaming sinister look of the film. Credit director Paul Verhoeven for a masterly and terrifying look into another world, the all-too-near future.
Being the most impressive Robocoptechnical aspects, including Rob Bottin’s fierce Robocop creation. William Sandell is sterile Metropolis-like production design is a powerful visual slam. Jost Vacano’s astute wide-angle lensing of the corporate villains, as well as his tilted compositions of the ultramodern structures, give Robocop an enchanting, expressionistic slant.
All other technical contributions are state-of-the-art and impressive. Unfortunately, Basil Poledouris’ rousing score is projected at such a boisterous decibel level that it’s almost impossible to distinguish. — Duane Byrge, originally published July 8, 1987.