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Except for one thing, Robocop is a great mix of action and satire. Except for one thing, Robocop transcends its own silliness and flirts with the great dour classics of the era, like Blade Runner and The Terminator. But one tiny thing has kept Robocop a lightning rod of controversy for a quarter century and prevented the city of Detroit from awarding its hometown humanoid hero the statue he so richly deserves. And that thing is an almost Saving Private Ryan level of graphic violence. But before I dwell on this, let’s open up the hood on Robocop and see what else is inside.

It’s the story of Detroit Police officer Alex Murphy (Weller), a pleasant but somewhat naïve man who’s devoted to both his job and his family. In fact, Murphy is such a good sport it almost seems like he doesn’t belong in this film, and that’s kind the point. Right off the bat we see that he is a swell guy stuck doing his job in a not so swell world. Throughout Robocop a series of humorous "news breaks" interrupt the action, masquerading as a cable news update of the future. They put context around the film’s events and provide a needed break from the story’s dark and cynical foundation. Apparently the future is going to be one where urban crime and drugs will be rampant. Corporate corruption will be at an all time high and America will be fighting two wars against terrorist aggression. The public will hardly notice because a glut of cheap consumer goods, bad television and 24 hour mass media will be there to soothe their troubled nerves.

In today’s world violent crime and drugs are down but the rest of planet Robocop sounds remarkably like what we see every day on CNN, if we’re not too busy catching up on Jersey Shore. It’s definitely real for Alex Murphy, and today he’ll kiss his family goodbye and walk into his new assignment with a spring in his step. And on his first day there, he’ll become the 32nd officer killed in a year.

Murphy’s untimely demise comes at the hands of Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith, the future Red Forman putting his foot in Detroit’s ass), the city’s leading crime boss. Boddicker is 100% psycho and lives life like Grand Theft Auto. Every day is a party and if you get in his way, he’ll riddle you with bullets and spit his gum out on your body. But Boddicker isn’t the only problem in town. A shadowy corporation called Omnicorp runs the city and the police department. Omnicorp creates artificial need for its security products by under funding the police, allowing violent crime to run wild. Murphy becomes Robocop when one of Omnicorp’s schemes – a cyborg protector – ends up needing a recently dead volunteer. Robocop proves to be an efficient dispenser of law enforcement bad-assery, yet he’s haunted by memories of his family, and of the men who shot him. This puts the temperamental tin man at odds with Boddicker and the feuding executives at Omnicorp, who view Detroit as nothing more than a chess board on which to test each other’s ego. Unbelievably, this scenario is executed nearly to perfection from a crisp, witty script full of humor and more than a little smug self awareness. But there’s just that one little thing…

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