An agitprop spitball aimed squarely at trickle down Reganomics and the abuse of privatization by profiteers, RoboCop looks every inch a product of its times. The self-righteousness of the filmmakers is dialed all the way up to 11, making Oliver Stone's contemporaneous Wall Street (1988) seem relatively restrained in its assignment of blame. On a style front, the hair of the younger actors is gelled high, women's blouses are poufy and high collared and boardroom and bedroom scenes have a flat, made-for-television quality that is almost painful to look at two decades hence. Paradoxically, the scenes that impressed us the most back then look the creakiest now. When venal OCP senior vice president Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) unveils his own automated cop of the future (which he hopes to sell to the military as the ultimate weapon), the raptor-like ED-209 (a creation of stop motion animator Phil Tippett) pads around with the inescapable quaintness of a vintage Ray Harryhausen creation. Happily, the performances are uniformly good, which suits a cautionary tale of the loss of humanity in an increasingly technologically-enhanced world. As stated, Peter Weller delivers a loose and warm performance for the short time his flesh and blood beat cop is alive and he is well matched by villains Cox and Kurtwood Smith, whose ragtag street gang includes Ray Wise and Paul McCrane. Equally fine in peripheral performances are Dan O'Herlihy and Miguel Ferrer, both of whom would (with Ray Wise) turn up as semi-regulars on the cult TV series Twin Peaks.
RoboCop has been issued on DVD several times in the past and has even been included in the esteemed Criterion Collection. While the Criterion disc was framed at non-anamorphic 1.66:1 (Paul Verhoeven's preferred aspect ratio), a subsequent anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer was made available as only as part of a box set that paired RoboCop with follow-ups RoboCop 2 (1989) and RoboCop 3) (1990). The MGM/Fox 20th Anniversary Edition retains the wider anamorphic transfer as part of a deluxe 2-disc package offering both the R-rated theatrical cut and the slightly more violent extended edition. No complaints about picture or sound, which are both as good as can be expected. Language options also include a French track, while subtitles are available in English and Spanish. On a supplemental level, the director/writer/producer audio commentary and featurettes included on disc 1 (the theatrical cut) are holdovers from a previous DVD release while the featurettes on disc 2 (the pre-MPAA cut) were prepared especially for this commemorative release. Highlights include interviews with Ray Wise, Kurtwood Smith and Miguel Ferrer as "Villains of Old Detroit" and with Peter Weller, producer Jon Davison, Paul Verhoeven and writer Paul Sammon (along others) for "RoboCop: Creating a Legend." RoboCop: 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition is attractively packaged in a sepia-toned tin keepcase.
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by Richard Harland Smith
