In a dysfunctional & crime ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop officer Alex Murphy returns to the force as a powerful cyborg with submerged memories haunting him.
When the law-enforcing RoboCop cleans up corrupt Motown, his victory is satisfying because he's got machinery and morals on his side. RoboCop is where high-tech meets High Noon.
It proceeds from a vision, and it takes that vision seriously. It ends up being moving -- and for a comic book of a movie, that's no small achievement.
There's a brooding, agonized quality to the violence that almost seems subversive, as if Verhoeven were both appalled and fascinated by his complicity in the toxic action rot.
Like the tormented figure at its center, this movie combines the mechanical with the human. And though much of the film is made up of spare parts from cop shows, exploitation flicks and comic books, it nevertheless comes to life.
