Andy's Archive: RoboCop (1987)
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RoboCop takes place in Detroit, which has an inflated crime rate and its police force has just been bought out by mega conglomerate, Omni Consumer Products or OCP for short. OCP has a vision for the future called "Delta City", no doubt so they can not just own the police, but they'll own where you work, where you live, and probably own your wife, too. Its not too far off from Wal-Mart being not only an electronic store, but also clothing, groceries, toys, a pharmacy, a salon, a restaurant, and even a bank. The next step in their evolution is likely an adjacent apartment complex.
Where this robot cop enters the story is when recently transferred police officer Alex Murphy and his new partner Anne Lewis encounter the biggest gang in town on their first patrol. Rather than waiting for back up, they make the mistake of chasing the crooks into a warehouse; but if they hadn't, we wouldn't have a very interesting movie. Murphy is cornered and blasted to hell in a gruesome scene. However he is reborn as OCP's newest creation to cut down on crime, RoboCop. I thought it was interesting how rather than showing Murphy being pieced together with his new, sleek, metallic body, it's done through his perspective as doctors, engineers, and OCP's yuppie executive Bob Morton check on his progress from corpse to cyborg. What OCP didn't count on with RoboCop was that he may retain some of his memories of his former self; they see him as another product that's company property. Peter Weller does an outstanding job conveying humanity while also acting robotic, but the villains are much more interesting to me. The gang's leader Clarence is played by Kurtwood Smith, famous for being the dad on "That 70's Show"; company executive Dick Jones (Ronnie Cox) is a real "dick"; while Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) is the suit and tie wearing asshole we all love to hate, or just hate.
Besides the shoot outs and the social commentary, its also genuinely funny. Maybe some of the humor is a bit twisted, like an executive at OCP being turned into swiss cheese in the board room and his fellow executive calls for a paramedic. The movie even starts out with a news broadcast and commercials that poke fun at society, like advertising a game where we can nuke other countries. Later there is a city councilman who's angry over losing an election, so he takes hostages and demands things like "fresh coffee" and a car "that gets really shitty gas mileage." I especially like this type of game show that pops up throughout the movie, though I can't tell what's going on except for a weird guy who gleefully proclaims that he'd "buy that for a dollar." Its like consumerism and capitalism meets the military, and we're all kind of like robots that buy products mindlessly and vote with our wallets. Instead of the companies owning the police, they own the politicians we elect. This movie holds up a mirror up to society, just like Lewis holds up a mirror to RoboCop to remind him that he's Murphy. We may be good little consumer robots, yet we still have some semblance of humanity remaining, too. This RoboCop movie would be pretty scary, if not for the bullets and blood to remind me that it is a movie.
Another parallel I've made after watching RoboCop is that its very much like the first Iron Man movie. If Tony Stark and Iron Man were separate entities, you could make the connection that Bob Morton is the hot shot executive like Tony Stark and Iron Man/RoboCop are the creations. Dick Jones is the same as Obadiah Stane, in that they are executives that employ the gangs who do their dirty work for them. The movie itself makes a connection that RoboCop is a Christ-like figure, which is possible because RoboCop is betrayed by the police force and then rests with Lewis, just like Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane; would that make Dick Jones into Judas? My knowledge of the Bible is a little rusty, so I'll stick with my Iron Man comparison. No matter which comparison you prefer, RoboCop is a film with many layers and its changed the way I view movies because I try to maintain an open mind.
It doesn't get much better than this.
ReplyDeleteI guess RoboCop is next in the queue for the inevitable remake, but even if it's done in the spirit of the original, I wonder what new observations it will really have to offer. The satire of consumer culture is hilariously (and depressingly) relevant even today. It's got to be challenging to pull off a really on-the-nose social commentary when you're actually participating in that society every day. That ought to take some distance, some perspective, and yet... Verhoeven and co. made a film that was not only topical to the 1980s, but eerily prescient. You can tie its aesthetic back to a certain era of cinema, yes, but nothing about its message (or certainly its effects) feels dated today.
What new avenues do you explore in a remake? What are the pressing issues of the day just begging to have the piss taken out of them? The erosion of privacy and sublimation of personal identity into a collective, social conscience? (i.e. what Facebook will do to us in 100 years... and hey, the blog is called MovieBorg after all!) It sort of jives well with the concept self-determination that was such a big part of what makes this film work. And yet...
Feels a little lightweight from our vantage point today, don't it? Getting endlessly spammed with Bubble Witch Saga invites is a little less ominous than the phenomenon of capitalism on steroids, and the reality of all public services being sold out to the private sector. We can already measure and experience those ill effects. It was the industry trend of the 1980s and it's a going concern today, more so than ever. The 1987 Robocop projected that out to its end game, so... what's to be gained in revisiting it? A social media satire could be a fun hook, but it's a little difficult to sell the idea of how Facebook (or whatever) crosses the line from innocuous/annoying to truly damaging/deadly. (Not to say I know that's the direction the remake is going in -- with all the absurd possibilities it invites, I'd be all for it -- just seems like a harder sell.)
ANYWAY, as to the movie itself... spot-on with the Christ allegory. Paul Verhoeven has likened his portrayal of Murphy/Robocop as a sort of modern-day "American Jesus." There's all kinds of imagery to back this up. The way he's pinned down and tortured mirrors the crucifixion, his resurrection, the climax with Clarence in that muddy pit = walking on water, etc. This interests me less than the themes of society vs. the individual, but it's there.
I want to say something about the Iron Man comparison too. A little bit of influence is acknowledged (we see an Iron Man comic in the liquor store that gets knocked over), but I think it's more of a happy coincidence how neatly it lines up with the Iron Man film, considering how that could have gone a lot differently. Both protagonists suffer gruesome, traumatizing bodily injuries that stirs something in the core of their humanity. In Murphy's case, it was a dehumanizing event for a man who was previously chock full of humanity. His journey is in trying to rediscover the man he already was. In Tony's case, he was already a pale imitation of a human being before his life-threatening event. This serves as the catalyst for awakening a sense of purpose and goodness within him. Ultimately, it's two people at opposite ends of the spectrum who follow redemptive paths, despite physically becoming part machine.
Finally:
"Nice shootin' kid, what's your name?"
"Murphy."
Best. Smash cut. Ever. Just a perfect encapsulation of all that had come before to bring the film film-circle.