RoboCop: The Tin Man with a Heart of Gold and a Gatling Gun in His Pocket
RoboCop ! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and anyone who’s ever wondered, ” What if Dirty Harry was rebuilt by RadioShack?”
Set in a Detroit’s Dystopian future, where crime is so bad the criminals are looking for safe spaces. Enter Omni Consumer Products (OCP), a corporation so evil they make Walmart look like a lemonade stand run by nuns. These guys have a plan: privatize the police force and replace them with RoboCop s. Because nothing says “justice” like a walking vending machine with a badge.
But wait! Before you get your ED-209 (that’s the corporate killer robot that looks like a Decepticon on stilts), there’s a human element; the RoboCop. Enter Officer Alex Murphy, who’s so wholesome he probably tucks his gun into bed at night. Murphy gets ambushed by a gang of psychopaths led by Clarence Boddicker. They blow Murphy up to the point where he’s more Swiss cheese than human.
OCP takes what’s left of Murphy—basically a spleen and a good attitude—and turn him into RoboCop, the ultimate law enforcement machine. He’s part man, part machine, and all cop. He’s like the love child of a Ford Pinto and a Terminator, with a voice that sounds like he’s been chain-smoking since the John F. Kennedy assassination.
RoboCop has got everything: satire, action, and more blood than a ketchup factory explosion. It’s like *Blade Runner* and *Die Hard* were surrogate donors for a baby raised by *Mad Max*. The violence is so over-the-top it’s almost cartoonish. People get shot, exploded, and melted in toxic waste. Begging the question, *Is this a movie or a PSA for gun control?*
The movie also takes some sharp jabs at corporate greed, media sensationalism, and the militarization of the police. Clarence Boddicker is the kind of villian who kicks puppies for fun and then bills you for it. And Dick Jones, the corporate sleazebag, is so slimy he probably sweats anal-ese. You love to hate them, and you cheer when RoboCop finally takes them down in the most spectacularly violent ways possible.
RoboCop isn’t just a shoot-’em-up. Underneath all that chrome and circuitry, Murphy is still in there, trying to remember who he was. He’s like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, except he’s got a gun that pops out of his leg. It’s the kind of movie that makes you gasp, and maybe even shed a tear—though that might just be from the sheer amount of shrapnel flying at the screen.
