Robocops (1987-1993)

Once again our excellent Picture House cinema The Belmont was showing a classic film, this time as part of the Culture Shock series. So it was that I was very much looking forward to seeing Robocop for the first time ever on the big screen (I was only 10 when it first came out). I had been thinking about reviewing all three Robocops for a while now, and this gave me the ideal opportunity to start. So here are three brief reviews of a classic 80s film and two not-so-classics!


Robocop (1987)

Director: Paul Verhoeven.
Writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner
Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Miguel Ferrer, Kurtwood Smith, Paul McCrane

Peter Weller is Murphy, a cop in the Detroit police force; left for dead when a notorious gang of criminals shoot the hell out of him, he is saved and re-incarnated as a cyborg who is out for revenge. Director Paul Verhoeven did a great job in creating an iconic hero, and a brutal action movie. By making it a bit tongue-in-cheek and ever so slightly hammy he managed to make Robocop a cult classic.

Helping out is a solid cast. Peter Weller and Nancy Allen are fairly convincing partners; Miguel Ferrer is great as the epitome of 80s yuppy corporate culture, and Kurtwood Smith (That 70s Show), & Paul McCrane (ER) in particular are great criminals. Everything adds up to create a fun, brutal and cool movie that could have been instantly forgettable, but instead is actually pretty great.

Things you might like: Seriously violent; lots of blood; great 80s sleaze performances; badass Robocop; eminently quotable; great score from Basil Poledouris; Paul McCrane being melted by toxic waste!

Things you may not like: Stop motion animation on ED209; ED209 growling and squealing like a pig.

Rating: 4 jars of baby food out of 5

Robocop 2 (1990)

Director: Irvin Kershner
Writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner, Frank Miller
Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Tom Noonan, Gabriel Damon

Robocop is on the trail of a notorious gang of drug dealers who are peddling the designer drug Nuke. When the leader of this drug ring, Cain, is killed; through various nefarious deals of questionable morals, OCP re-incarnate him as Robocop 2 - a cyborg that Murphy must eventually have a showdown with.

Astounded as I was when I noticed that Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner was at the helm of this project, he couldn't save it from being a very mediocre film. The over-riding story of OCP ruining Detroit so that they can start construction on Delta City is good enough, (it's the same writers throughout the trilogy + Frank Miller for 2 and 3) but the execution just isn't good enough. I think Kershner et al tried to distance themselves from the "I'd buy that for a dollar" feel of the first film, but playing it straight just didn't work; especially when Robo was re-programmed. Shudder.

Tom Noonan was fairly forgettable as Cain, though I was a little impressed with Gabriel Damon's performance as Hob, he's not bad for a kid, though I've seen a lot better. The other problem is that the special effects used are not up to much; Robocop vs a very obviously stop-motion animated Robocop 2 just doesn't cut it. Imagine Tony Stark vs The Dude at the end of Iron Man, but crap. In the first film the main bad guy was a man, not a robot, which worked great. Trying to up the ante by having a robot vs robot climax just didn't work for me.

Things you might like: Robocop saying "Isn't this a school night?" to a bunch of kids in an arcade; OCP being desperate to control Detroit; at least Peter Weller, Nancy Allen and Robert DoQui as the Sergeant are still there!

Things you might not like: Re-programmed Robocop; paper thin bad guy characters, un-convincing climactic battle; fairly lazy un-imaginative direction.

Rating: 2 out of 5 canisters of Nuke.

Robocop 3 (1993)

Director: Fred Dekker
Writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner, Frank Miller
Starring: Robert John Burke, Nancy Allen, Rip Torn

OCP have finally gone too far and are employing a brutal Rehab squad to clear people out of their houses to make way for construction of Delta City. Robocop sympathises with the underground resistance to these Nazi-style clearances, and follows them to their hideout. OCP are being taken over by Kanemitsu, a Japanese company who have a vested interest in Delta city; but when the CEO of Kanemitsu learns of Robocop's defection and the resistance to rehabilitation he sends over his highly trained assassin. Yet another mess for Robocop to sort out.

For the third outing, Monster Squad director Fred Dekker was chosen to run the show. Robocop 3 was his fourth and final film as a director. Nuff said. Again, the story of OCP (now run by a new CEO played by Rip Torn) trying to control the whole city is a fair one, but the plot is lame, the script bad and the acting for the most part woeful. Rip Torn is about the only good performance, he has quite a commanding presence. Even Peter Weller couldn't be tempted back for the 3rd instalment.

There are far too many stupid plot holes and daft bits to list, and the less said about the rubber-faced Japanese assassin the better. In some vain attempt to boost audience numbers, the rating was dropped from the 18 certificate of the first two films to a 15. Consequently, there is none of the brutal action of the first films; indeed the action in Robocop 3 is probably more TV A-team than anything else. A real whimper of a film to end a trilogy that started with such a bang, indeed several bangs of shotguns.

Things you might like: erm... Rip Torn?

Things you might not like: Robocop's silly arm accessories, awful script, generally bad acting, little or no real action, Jet-pack sequence!

Rating: I wouldn't buy that for a dollar.

Final thoughts

It's a shame that since the first film is so enjoyable, the follow up films taint Verhoeven's 80s classic. Taking the three films together, the one thing I do like is the overall theme of corporate evil. OCP are clearly in big business to make as much money as possible, and as they become bigger their scruples become fewer. The ends justify the means, even if the means demand exploiting people and destroying lives. This theme is as relevant to day as it was 20-25 years ago; it takes an effort to not buy anything today that has either a Unilever or Nestlé label on it. Huge corporations are here, and though they might not be building destructive robots, their ethics are often very questionable.

The Thing (1982)

I was lucky enough that our local Picture House cinema The Belmont were showing John Carpenter's classic The Thing last night. An absolutely fabulous film, that hits all the right notes of horror and tension. Anyway, I've reviewed it before so here's a picture of Kurt Russell looking cool, and a section of Ennio Morricone's wonderfully atmospheric score for you to listen to.

The Sunday Scene: Alien

It has been quite a while since I did a Sunday Scene. I could come up with an excuse and say that I've been really busy (which is true-ish), but then it doesn't take too long to write these anyway; so who am I kidding. Anyway, on with this weeks scene.

Given that I'm really excited about the release of Prometheus in a few weeks, I decided that I could watch all four Alien films first, and I started this week with Alien (review to follow soon). A fantastic film that is full of wonderful scenes, but there is one in particular that I think has gained a certain notoriety; of course I mean the chest-burster scene.

Poor Kane (John Hurt) was daft enough to look directly into an Alien egg and received a face full of face-hugger for his troubles. After the parasite has fallen off, Kane seems fine and just wants some food before the crew go back into hyper-sleep. Poor Kane never gets back to sleep, because the thing that was implanted inside him now bursts forth in dramatic style.

The scene is wonderful for several reasons. It is the point in the film where everything starts to go horribly wrong; up to this point there are some clashes of personality between the crew, but from now on there is open hostility between them. It also consolidates the sexual horror of the Alien life cycle. Kane essentially has his face raped by an alien thing, and in this scene he gives birth (John Hurt's words). The chest-burster itself is very reminiscent of a very specific part of the male anatomy.

What really sells the scene is the reaction of the cast. There is a moment of real shock and surprise, as they are as horrified as the viewer. A persistent rumour is that none of the cast knew what was about to happen. Not quite true. They had all seen the chest-burster so they knew what they were reacting to, never mind that there was a guy under the table with the thing on the end of stick to poke it through dummy John Hurt's chest; and of course they all knew the script. What they didn't know was that there would be mini explosive pellets under Kane's shirt that would help the bursting effect, and they weren't prepared for the amount of blood that was going to be used. So when the initial thrust of the chest-burster happens, the reaction of the crew is completely real, and that really seals the scene.

Immediately following the bursting we see some of the different responses from the crew. Parker immediately grabs something to attack the thing, but Ash doesn't want it touched. Indeed, as the alien scuttles away, everyone looks horrified apart from Ash who looks curious more than anything.  I know he's the scientist and should be curious, but it looks more ambiguous than that. Excellent scene from an excellent film; everything about it is so visceral, and here's hoping that Ridley Scott will be as visually astonishing in Prometheus.

Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

Immediately following Taken on Film4, Law Abiding Citizen was shown, and I feel I should be forgiven for thinking that I was about to see a re-run of the very same plot. Gerard Butler is Clyde Shelton, who seems to be your average Joe Public. In the very first scene two guys get into his house, stab Clyde, stab and rape his wife, and kill his daughter. Clyde survives, but he sees everything that is wrong with the law when lawyer Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) makes a deal with one of the killers which sees him only get 5 years inside, while the other guy goes to death row. Clyde is therefore out for revenge.

Based on that, you may think that this is hardly different from any other revenge plot, but actually this film isn't like that at all. I don't really want to say any more, otherwise I will completely spoil the rest of the plot. The brief synopsis above is essentially only the first 5 minutes of the film; the rest is not what you would expect from this genre. That's not to say there is a massive twist (he's not Kaiser Soze), and it is not a fantastic film, just quite a cool gruesome crime thriller that is different enough from the norm to stand out from the crowd.

Butler is good as the main protagonist, he is the perfect actor to play the calm, manipulative and vengeful Clyde. Foxx is fine, but he doesn't own the character, and there are many other actors who could have played Nick Rice. There are plenty of fairly shocking moments, and director F. Gary Gray manages to keep up the tension and intrigue until we find out what has been going on in the final act of the movie. If you like your crime thrillers, then I would recommend Law Abiding Citizen; nothing amazing but it was good enough to stop me going to bed past midnight!

Taken (2008)

I'm retired, I'm not dead!

I get the feeling that it was Taken that really started Neeson's re-branding as a badass action star; and it's easy to see why. At the start of the film Neeson's character - Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent whose wife (Famke Janssen) left him for another guy - is trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter. He's still quite an intense guy and finding it hard to let go of his previous life. When his daughter goes on holiday to Paris and is kidnapped by a human trafficking organisation Bryan's old instincts kick in, and he doesn't waste a second tracking down the abductors. And my god he goes for it!

As soon as he hits Parisian soil, Mills is completely brutal and has absolutely no compunction about beating up, torturing and killing anyone. Neeson is amazing in this role, single-minded, determined and indomitable. For a big feller he can fairly move and he seems to be a natural in his action scenes. The action is very slick, and is filmed so that it is all very fluid and dramatic; I guess director Pierre Morel has learnt a few things about action when he was camera operator and DOP for two of The Transporter films.

Having just seen Famke Janssen squeezing the life out of people with her thighs in Goldeneye, it was quite nice to see her act here. Even in the X-men I don't think she gets to do much, but I was quite impressed by her here. She was very believable being exasperated by her ex-husband, and was suitably crushed when learning of her daughters kidnap. She only had a small role but was very good in it.

An action-packed, brutal thriller that is dragged kicking and screaming into the class of great films by Neeson's tremendous performance. It has taken (!) me a while to get around to seeing this film; I say it like this because I've been aware of people raving about it for quite some time. I have to say that the recommendations weren't wrong. No wonder Neeson was fairly hot property after this.