 |
| Peter
Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, Dan O'Herlihy |
|
 |
Anamorphic
widescreen |
|
Dolby Digital
5.1 |
|
DTS |
|
 |
Trailer(s) |
|
Featurette(s) |
|
Documentary |
|
Audio commentary
|
|
Deleted scenes
|
|
Concept art
/ storyboards |
|
Multi-angle
feature |
|
|
|
|
Robocop
(Peter Weller): Come quietly or there will be... trouble.
A
dead policeman is rebuilt into a robotic supercop by the corporation
controlling the police department.
 Rarely
has an exploitation film proved as surprisingly funny and intelligent
as RoboCop. It makes a nice counterpoint to The Terminator,
also a low-budget science-fiction thriller much better than its credentials
would suggest. For where The Terminator's narrative - like its
titular cyborg - will stop at nothing in its relentless forward drive,
RoboCop provides a more human framework with room for plentiful
humorous asides and satiric diversions. Both movies rise beyond their
exploitation roots without defaulting on the required contents: violence,
explosions, hi-tech gadgetry, etc.
Combining thematic elements from such diverse sources as Frankenstein,
Metropolis, American consumer culture and corporate Reaganism, RoboCop
never develops a completely satisfactory narrative drive, but more than
makes up for its clichéd plotting with its fast pace, its comic-book
visual style and its layers of satire. |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Both
the Region 1 release from Image, movie-only and letterboxed at 1.85:1,
and the American region-free Criterion Edition have gone out of print.
A movie-only release sporting a new anamorphic transfer and Dolby Digital
5.1 audio mix is now available for Region 1 from MGM/UA, and is expected
to be followed by a special edition DVD later in 2002. The Criterion
Collection edition, now a collector's item, served as a basis for this
review.
MGM/UA is releasing this very Special Edition of RoboCop in a
boxed set together with the two (inferior) sequels for Region 2 in February
2002. [see separate review]
This
release dates back to the time when Criterion did not yet release anamorphic
widescreen transfers of their special DVD editions. By now they have
long since received the message that DVD lovers really insist on anamorphic
widescreen versions of their favorite movies, but one can only hope
that Criterion will ever release new anamorphic transfers of their earlier
releases.
RoboCop has been letterboxed at a director-approved ratio of
1.66:1, revealing more of the frame than was ever visible in theaters
or on Image's movie-only DVD release, which has been matted down to
1.85:1. It's a pretty old transfer by now, but though it does reveal
some graininess and some evidence of compression artifacts here and
there, it's generally a pleasing picture, albeit one with a lack of
detail. The movie has a limited, very metallic color pallette, and this
transfer seems to do it justice.
The soundtrack is presented in Dolby 2.0, and the sound design is decent
but unspectacular, making limited use of the matrixed surround channels
and generally making the most of a soundtrack clearly limited by a lack
of dynamic range.
Extra
features are Criterion's strong suit, and their release of RoboCop
is no exception. And although some of the visual designs have already
dated by now, the content on offer here is definitely up to scratch.
Two scenes that were deleted from the theatrical cut (and all previous
video editions) have been restored in this release. They had been cut
to avoid an X rating as they were perceived as being overly violent.
Both cuts are really a number of shots from the sequences where Murphy
gets shot and the one where ED-209 shoots the guy in the meeting. I
had expected before seeing this version myself that I would prefer the
old cut, as the movie is already extremely violent and I was hardly
waiting for even more violent shots to be added to it. But the sequences
really do work much better with these shots reinstated. The ED-209 sequence
especially is just so over-the-top, it's much funnier and somehow less
gruesome with the extra comic book gore added in: the robot just keeps
shooting and shooting the corpse on the table, showing how mindless
and stupid it really is, and the scene is brought to a hilarious climax
when the stunned silence is followed by the words: 'Someone call a paramedic!!'.
The two main extra features on the disc combine to tackle most aspects
of the movie: an 'audiovisual essay' documents all of the visual
effects in the movie, and an excellent audio commentary from
director Paul Verhoeven, writer Ed Neumeier and producer Jon Davison.
Their commentaries were recorded separately and edited together expertly,
with all commentary still scene-specific and interesting points being
made by all concerned about both the thematic background and the production
process. The audiovisual essay is basically a reworking of a long article
written by Don Shay for Cinefex magazine, illustrated with audiovisual
clips and plenty of stills and conceptual art. This feature requires
you to sit down for quite an exhaustive read, but it's more than worthwhile
if you're interested in special effects work in general and creative
model work in particular. The one drawback to this feature is that it
has not been divided into chapters that allow access to various points
in the essay; it's really too much to read from a TV screen in one go,
and it's annoying to have to step forward through all the screens to
find the point where you had left off.
Other extras include storyboards of two scenes that were never
shot, a fine film-to-storyboard comparison of the scene where
ED-209 blows away the young executive, a teaser trailer and the
theatrical trailer. The
menus use various shots from the movie as well as some still frames passing
by in the background, accompanied by cues from the score. Some of the
visual designs already seem a bit dated by now, though the front cover
of the box (with the RoboCop logo embossed in beat-up chrome metal) still
does look sensational.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2000,
updated: January 28, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on Robocop.
Click here
to return to the front page.
|
|
| |
