One Tough Cop
So it had been well over a decade since I had seen any of the Robocop films and I don’t know that I ever saw part three before getting a chance to review this box set. The series began in 1987 with what would be (perhaps to no surprise) the best film in the trilogy. Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, Robert DoQui, would all partake in this film that pitted Peter Weller’s character (Officer Murphy) and the city of Detroit in general against Smith’s character (cop-killer and
drug lord Clarence Boddicker).
Murphy plays the likable, hard-working cop who gets transferred to the roughest, most crime-ridden area of Detroit. The city is on the lookout for Boddicker who runs drugs and weapons and has killed almost three dozen police officers. Officer Anne Lewis (Allen) and Murphy chase down Boddicker and his crew after a robbery, but Murphy gets brutally murdered in the process.
Meanwhile, OCP, Omni-Consumer Products, a billion dollar defense and products corporation, has some sinister plans to take over Detroit. Their plan is unknown to the current mayor, but the idea is to purge the city of crime, or so it seems, and then rebuild Detroit from the ground up under the name Delta City. To help in their efforts to fight crime, OCP created the ED 209, a mech designed to lethally takedown the bad guys. It malfunctions, though, and the outcome is a new variant that becomes Robocop — built from the body and mind of Murphy.
The film, and the series for that matter, takes a fairly interesting look at the idea of a cyborg, and whether they’re machine or human. These themes are amplified with the story of his wife and child that is revisited in the sequel. Clearly, though, the series is about gun-heavy violence which the first film has plenty of as Robocop tracks down Boddicker and brings him to justice.
Three years later, in 1990, much of the same cast returns in another story about a crime infested Detroit. OCP is taking over the city from the mayor after swindling the government and foreclosing on the debt that the city owes OCP. Meanwhile, Belinda Bauer takes a lead role as Dr. Juliette Faxx, a psychologist who helps OCP find just the right person to become a ‘bad’ Robocop to combat the real Robocop. The problem with the real Robocop, OCP realized, was that Murphy was too loyal and basically good to be completely warped by OCP’s directives. So for the next version, they take Cain, played by Tom Noonan. Cain is the creator of a highly addictive narcotic known as Nuke (sounds like an energy drink these days, doesn’t it?). Nuke is destroying Detroit and it’s of no help that the police force is on strike. It’s up to Robocop and Officer Lewis to rally the other officers, stop Cain, and ultimately stop Robocop v2.
The final Robocop film stars a new lead actor, Robert Burke. Of course, given Robocop’s appearance and voice, there isn’t much of a difference between Burke and Weller. Several actors make a return like Nancy Allen, and the threat to Detroit this time is once again OCP and their plan to destroy Detroit and create Delta City. Their tactics are becoming more overt however and they are forcible evicting Detroit residents from their home so that the buildings can be destroyed to pave way for Delta City. A band of rebels who understand the nature of the problem stand to fight back, but their actions are against the law. Will Robocop help them or strictly uphold the law?
Having watched these again now, I don’t feel like the films have aged all that well. Granted, they weren’t exactly classics to begin with, however. But at times, they’re painful to watch due to either pacing, overly dramatic scenes, or cheesy action. That said, I’ve seen far worse, and the Robocop films are worth a brief nostalgic trip every so-many years.
The Blue On Blu-ray
Robocop on Blu-ray is a mixed offering. I like the packaging and box art and the consistent, attractive and very functional menus. The presentation quality is mostly good — there is some consistent grain, especially in the first film but it’s smoothed out pretty well so it’s not blatantly obvious. The image quality
seemed to steadily get better throughout this set, with Robocop 2 looking much better than the original. The sharpness and vibrant colors of part two and three do a lot to make it stand out. The DTS-HD audio does nicely for itself across all three movies.
Where this set is really lacking is in extra features. The only extras in this entire set are trailers for the films themselves, which are at least in HD, but still…that’s it. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why a studio does this to consumers. Maybe in two years Fox will do a 25th Anniversary release with extras and the two sequels, but for someone who was hoping to have a definitive, ‘this is it’ set of the
Robocop films, they will be sorely disappointed with the complete lack of extra features.
With that, let’s get to the summary…