THE MOVIE

Review by Tim M

There’s a new law enforcer in town….and he’s half man, half machine! From the director of Total Recall & Basic Instinct comes a “sci-fi fantasy with sleek, high powered drive” (Time) about an indestructible high tech policeman who dishes out justice at every turn! ROBOCOP is a “fast, furious & entertaining” (LA Daily News) adventure that doesn’t let up n thrills.

When a good cop (Peter Weller) gets blown away by some ruthless criminal, innovative scientists and doctors are able to piece him back together as an unstoppable crime-fighting cyborg called “Robocop”. Impervious to bullets and bombs and equiped with high tech weaponry, Robocop quickly makes a name for himself by cleaning up the crime-ridden streets of violence-ravaged Detroit. But, despite his new, hardened exterior, Robocop is tormented by scraps of memory of his former life and relives vivid nightmares of his own death at the hands of the vicious killers. Now he is about to seek more than justice…he wants revenge!

I remember this movie as being bleak and too violent, and I remember not liking it. Well, forget that memory. I have a new one to take its place. Robocop is a cool, old school action movie.

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I am SICK TO DEATH of all these “thinking man’s action movies” that are all about hackers and people stealing computer chips and discs. Robocop is set in the future, involves computers, yet has a simple storyline to it, not like movies such as Mission Impossible 2 where you have a big boss who lost a computer disc and these small time hackers found it and then hacked into a system and the boss tried to kill them so they hacked some more and typed and looked really unrealistic and bored everyone because people wanted to see firemen and cops fight bad guys hand to hand, mano a mano, instead of a bunch of freaking nerds who fight using their keyboard.

There are no stand out performances in this, as everybody goes through the paces and does what they need to do. It is overly violent. There are decapitations, burnings of toxic waste, explosions, gunshots that rip through people’s chests. But, it’s pretty fun. You wanna see Robocop get the bad guys.

May I comment on the theme, the Robocop theme is awesome. It really portrays the right messages, and it’s a theme that makes you want to get up and go shoot the bad guys yourself. Themes are missing from movies nowadays, and so its refreshing to take a look back to when music in movies meant something.

The film overall is excellent, and especially the ending. When you watch it, you’ll know what I mean, it ends at precisely the right moment.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Robocop cop looks very impressive on DVD and is the best I have seen it. The film is presented in 1.85:1 and features 16x9 enhancement. The image displays a level of sharpness I didn’t really expect from it, I guess that comes from watching it on video too many times. Detail is everywhere and you can really get a good look at what has been put in the frame. It’s good to see a nice version of a film you’ve seen before in poorer circumstances.

This film doesn’t really feature a broad color palate, mostly silver and grey, but all of the colors are well recreated and come off the screen well.

There are a few flaws on this transfer but these were to be expected and to want a blemish free transfer would just be wishful thinking. All up however we have an excellent video presentation for what is a landmark film.

Audio:

The audio on this disc comes in the form of a DD5.1 track. Audio sounds good and aside from some very minor lapses is always audible. Syncing is right on the money and sound effects never overpower the dialogue or other sounds. All of the speakers get used well to draw you in and surround you with a myriad of noise. Directionality is also excellent with a logical progression from screen to sound. The score is great and contains the very memorable ‘theme’. It is well recreated on this disc and balances out with everything else.

THE EXTRAS

We have a fair few extras with this release and these should delight fans of the film.

Diretcors Cut
Perhaps the biggest extra is the directors cut of the film. Whilst this only adds about 30 seconds to the film’s running time it is good to see how the director intended it to be. You can select to watch the original version of the film as well. The only problem with this is the branching which quite frankly sucks.

Audio Commentary
This features the director, writer and producer. This is a very good commentary and proves the advantages of having all the participants together. They talk at length about just about everything. This is a very interesting and entertaining commentary that I’ll probably check out again at some stage.

Featurette
This is a fairly sizeable featurette made recently that takes a good long look at the film and it’s making. This is the way featurettes should be and I recommend it to anyone. It makes a great addition to the film.

Deleted Scenes
These are interesting as they contain some footage deemed too violent. Well worth checking out they provide a good indication of what the film could have been.

Featurettes
We have a couple of old (late 80s) featurettes made for the film. These don’t really provide much info but it’s good to see them here.

We also have storyboard comparisons, trailers and photos on the disc.

SUMMARY

Awesome movie, huge swag of extras, go BUY IT!