Robocop - Corporate Greed, Explosive Gore, and Robotic Justice

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Remember when action movies had substance? RoboCop wasn't just an explosive sci-fi flick about a cyborg cop—it was a prescient vision of our future.

Watching Paul Verhoeven's 1987 masterpiece today feels eerily prophetic. Long before our current concerns about facial recognition technology, corporate control of public services, and media desensitization to violence, RoboCop was laying it all out with remarkable accuracy. What makes this film truly special is how it balances biting social satire with genuinely thrilling action sequences that still hold up decades later.

The practical effects deserve special mention—from the horrific toxic waste scene to Clarence Boddicker's spectacularly bloody demise, these moments remain seared into viewers' memories. Speaking of Boddicker, Kurtwood Smith's performance stands out as remarkably ahead of its time, feeling contemporary even by today's standards. Nancy Allen's portrayal of Officer Lewis also deserves recognition for avoiding the typical female action character tropes of the era—no forced romance, no unnecessary sexualization, just a competent cop who happens to be a woman.

What truly elevates RoboCop is Verhoeven's outsider perspective as a Dutch director examining American culture. The film's commercial breaks and news segments might seem like quirky additions, but they build a rich dystopian world while delivering sharp commentary on media, consumerism, and violence. This film isn't just worth seeing—it's essential viewing that rewards multiple watches with new details and insights each time. Whether you're revisiting this classic or experiencing it for the first time, you'll understand why we both rated it 4.5/5 stars without hesitation. What's your favorite scene from this groundbreaking film?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, and welcome to Movies Worth Seeing.
Today's episode's a littledifferent in that we are
actually going to talk about amovie that is worth seeing.
I've been copying a lot offlack from friends and family
being like why do you keeptalking about movies that are
s***?
And I'm like, well, that's whatmovies come out, so I can't
really do much about it.
Sometimes I watch a new movieand I think that it's gonna be

(00:22):
good.
It doesn't always work out, sowe decided that we are going to
go back to a time when there waslots of great films, and
today's episode we're going totalk about RoboCop.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
RoboCop.
Thank you for your cooperation.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
So you watched it for the first time.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
First time in a very long time, I did not remember
anything about the story besidesall the spoilers you see online
.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Wow, I'm so interested in how it felt for
you because I saw it the otherday and I love watching it.
I can watch it and never getsick of it, and it's so hard to
pinpoint what the exact reasonis, but it's like a whole
collection of just firing on allcylinders.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
It was way ahead of its time.
Besides a couple of littleshitty CGI, most of it was
actually pretty good.
It wasn't CGI, though, it wasstop motion.
It was stop motion.
Well, you could see, it wasstop motion Look it was like
1988.
87.

(01:31):
87, 87, 87, michael, howdisappointing for 87.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
They did amazing.
They did amazing, yes, and thismovie didn't have a big budget.
This wasn't like hollywoodblockbuster budget level no,
this was a big gamble, oh I shit, I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Godwood Smith Red from that same show.
I can't think of anyone elsebut Red.
That's true Plenty of warmmemories.
His acting style was way aheadof its time as well.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Interesting.
What is it about that?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Way ahead.
Everybody from the 80s and the90s was like big.
Look at Nancy Allen, forexample.
Her acting style is typical forthe 80s.
It's like pretty bland withemotions, it's big and it's flat
, but it's okay, that's, that'sthe style of that time, right.
And then you have peter weller,who has the same thing.
It's like big movements whenhe's his own character, when

(02:19):
he's himself right before heturns into a rob cop.
Spoiler alert as much as youcan spoil an 80s movie robot cop
.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Has a robot cop in, just warning everyone his
movements are also big.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's anime.
It's animated, right.
But kirkwood smith his actingstyle.
You could put him in today'smovies with the same acting
style and he wouldn't fall outof place when you're watching
lots of 80s movies as well.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
he is a guy that like , even though his backstory
isn't a lot to go off, he doesstand out.
He goes from being the mainantagonist to then kind of
becoming a henchman and thengoing back to the main
antagonist.
He has, like, the best momentsand he's more memorable, and I
love his reactions when Robocopis like I'm not taking you in,

(03:10):
I'm not arresting you, and he'slike whoa, whoa, whoa.
What do you mean?
You're there.
Slow down, buddy boy.
What do you mean?
We can talk about this.
Oh, he's such a prick too Likehe's so good at being a bastard.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Just give me my phone call.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
So while Nancy Allen's performance isn't like
gripping, like standout oranything like that amongst all
the other performances, right,I've got to say like when I
watch this and thinking likethis is late 80s, it's
mind-boggling that they do thischaracter, anne Lewis, in a way
where she's not just playing astraight-up love interest to

(03:53):
Alex Murphy, she's just a friend.
They don't even imply or,subtly, they don't go down that
path, which is great because youdon't want to see that.
Even Paul Verhoeven told NancyAllen cut your hair short
instead of going for like thelong hair, look Like he wanted
her to look different to herother roles, and I could see

(04:14):
that in the hands of otherdirectors or something like that
.
They would just present her asoverly sexualised kind of love
interest, whereas in this likethey don't go that way at all
and I think that would have beenmassive in like the late 80s to
do something like that.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
I love the look of Robocop.
I love that grit, thatcorporate kind of like.
There's this meshing of likenew versus old where you've got
this emerging metropolis that'strying to be built in this
shithole city, that's trying tobe built in this whole city
that's being underfunded, like.
I feel like it's a great littlecommentary on like capitalism

(04:54):
and corporate greed.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
And the beautiful part of it is that it set it up
for future films.
So look at nowadays movies Likecurrent movies that recently
came out.
It's always corporations thathave their fingers with the
government or military orsomething like that, where just
money buys them their way intopower.

(05:16):
That's exactly what theyexplored in Robocop, and it just
there was a prediction of thefuture, which is crazy, Like a
lot of technology they used aswell, like the facial
recognition, all that kind ofstuff.
It's all.
It didn't exist back then andit all exists now.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, I love the little knife, wolverine style
knife claw USB.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, it's a USB stick.
It's different stuff.
That's cool, I like that.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, I mean, like that's a great example of like
foreshadowing in.
Like at first you're like, oh,that's just a random kind of
power like that he has, but thenit comes into play right at the
end and saves his life.
That's just such a simple thingthat I feel like modern movies
don't do that.
Well, if this was a superheromovie, there wouldn't be the

(06:10):
foreshadowing.
It would just be like oh yeah,this superhero, superpower is
this because it's convenient forthe plot, instead of like
planting the seeds for a powerto then come back into play in
like the climax of the movie.
What else is like a standout inthis?
I mean the practical effectsBlood and gore just rips off the
page.
I mean like you see a dude notjust drive into the toxic waste

(06:37):
but come out of the toxic wastelooking disgusting and all like
mutated and burning his skin andstuff.
I don't even know how they didthat shit.
But then it doesn't end there.
It keeps going, because then hegets across to one of his mates
and one of his mates is justlike dude, get the fuck away

(06:58):
from me, like he doesn't give ashit about him anymore.
And then a car hits him andhe's all slovenly and he just
disintegrates, he explodes, it'sso brutal, Except for his head.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
His head rolls on.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Oh wow I didn't even notice that when you watch it
you're almost like, damn, thatwas such a good death.
That could have been like theactual villain's death.
But I mean like that Red'sdeath I mean Kurtwood Smith
fucking Clarence Spodekar isdeath Like just the stabbing of

(07:36):
the throat and then this giantexplosion of blood that goes
onto Murphy's chest plate.
It's just like an image thatgets ingrained in your mind,
especially when you watch thismovie at such a young age when
you weren't supposed to watch it.
Yeah, you don't forget that.
Also, the movie's funny, likeit has lots of dark humour.
Well, you've got these randomcommercials that don't really

(07:59):
contribute to the plot at all.
It's almost just likeworld-building stuff.
But that's something that youwouldn't expect in something
like this sunblock 5000 yeah,you could take it out, but then
you take out the character, thepersonality of the movie.
The charm and this is the typeof that you don't see in new
movies is taking a chance ondoing something like that and

(08:20):
the uh.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
The satire of it is amazing because then you also
have that little news um breakkind of thing we're like, ah,
and today, by routine startup,the space laser killed 117
people and now here's thiscommercial uh, it was the satire
of it is brilliant.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
It kind of gives you a little idea of like what the
rest of the world's like, so youdon't just know like okay, this
is Detroit in the future, butyou get the sense that like the
whole America is kind of, andthat's something that I remember
watching the making of, andwhen they were talking about
like directors and stuff, theywere actually saying like Paul
Verhoeven's great, because he'sgoing to do a better job than an

(09:02):
American director would,because an American director
would not understand how othercountries see America, and the
humour of that.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yes, From a one to five stars.
What would you give Robocop1987?
Don't call it 1987.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Just call it Robocop.
Robocop, the original Robocop,I would give it 1987.
I would give it like you, f***Gotcha.
I'd give it four and a half outof five stars because, man, I
just can't get enough of it.
It's one of those movies I canwatch and days later I can just
watch it again.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
I would give this movie a four and a half out of
five stars as well.
Oh shit, yeah, no, it's amazing, really good movie Transcender
for the time it set the groundfor future films and premises
for films and story structuresfor films.
Yeah, really, really good forits time, really good.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, it's a shame that the sequels didn't build on
that more.
But yeah, I think Robocop 1 isjust a quintessential 80s film,
but it has way more meat to itthan you think for a movie
called Robocop.
So that's our retro kind oflook back at Robocop movie

(10:26):
Definitely worth seeing.
And yeah, if that is the endfor it, we'll try watching the
second one.
I'm done.
It is a crazy movie, man.
I will give it that it's gotballs.
Well, we'll find out.
So if you enjoyed this video,please like, share and subscribe
for more videos like this andcomment below.
What are your thoughts on theoriginal Robocop?

(10:46):
What are your favourite scenes?
Comment below.
Let us know.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Can you please pronounce his name properly
Verhoeven?
Yeah, it's Paul Verhoeven.
No, it's Verhoeven, notVerhoeven.
Are you 100%?
Yes, because it's a Dutch nameand I'm Dutch.
It's Verhoeven Verhoeven, paulVerhoeven.
Verhoeven, you waited the wholepodcast to tell me this when

(11:11):
you watch his back, you'll seeme like I'll leave it.