PAUL VERHOEVEN
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBBBB. USA, 1987. Orion Pictures. Screenplay by Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner. Cinematography by Jost Vacano. Produced by Arne Schmidt. Music by Basil Poledouris. Production Design by William Sandell. Costume Design by Erica Edell Phillips. Film Editing by Frank J. Urioste. Podcast: My Criterions. Academy Awards 1987.
This awesome science-fiction film is a standout from the already impressive list of great genre entries in the 1980s (The Terminator, 2010, Outland, etc.). Peter Weller plays an honest cop who is shot nearly to death by a criminal gang and brought into the hospital full of bullet holes. The police department decide to announce his death while putting his body into a half-human, half-machine form that they are testing as a new level of law enforcement for the crime-ridden streets of Detroit. The result is RoboCop, a machine of dead-on judgment skills and perfect aim with the heart of a human being beating underneath all the metal. He does a great job of cleaning up the streets, but soon his main mission becomes to get revenge on the people who made him the way he is. This marvelous film enjoys all the great action sequences it shows, while deepening the soulful story with the tale of a man in search of the life he left behind. Slick and exciting, featuring incredible visual and sound effects, it is director Paul Verhoeven’s masterpiece and one of the best films of its year.
