2009 Oscar Pool

Finite Focus: I’d Buy That For A Dollar! (Robocop)

May 6th, 2008
Written By: Kurt Halfyard

robocopIn nearly every origin story of every comic book film ever made, there is a sequence where the hero and the audience discover the scope and novelty of the superheros abilities ‘out in the field’. Whether it be Tobey Maguire discovering his ability to climb walls and swing around in Spiderman, the ‘Slimer’ sequence in Ghostbusters where the boys find novel ways to destroy an upscale New York hotel, or even less comic book-ish hero stories such ‘The Quickening’ scene in Highlander.

Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop (aside: a film with more DVD releases than Terminator 2 or Army of Darkness), goes about showing off its hero’s first time in the field by having him stop thuggish Detroit low-lives, including a convenience store robber (and Randall “Tex” Cobb lookalike) - who notably buys an issue of Marvel’s Iron Man comic before the hold-up; two would-be rapists - one of them gets a bit of poetic comeuppance (pun intended); and the former Mayor of the old city who has bypassed the usual electoral process by taking hostages in City Hall.

Notice in the recent Iron Man film having the ‘field test’ sequence divided across first escaping the middle-east where the excessive direct-shooting followed by lumbering slugfest echoing the convenience store shoot-out, and secondly Stark re-entering with the Mark 3 suit where the film borrows the hostage targeting gag (with head shots of nameless terrorists replacing the castration - Welcome to the strange logic of PG-13!)

This scene also integrates many of the story-telling techniques that Verhoeven puts to excellent use: The pervasive ‘American Benny Hill’ show that everyone in Old Detroit seems to watch is on the TV in the store both before and after the robbery; the first person Heads-Up POV display which delineates Robocop’s video-scan-line view of the world compared to the crisp clarity of 35mm film (all throughout the film there is marvelous use of POV camera); and the recurring use of a TV headline-news show (complete with fake commercials) to handle the big-picture exposition. With comicbook films regularly clocking in over 2 hours, Robocop should be admired for its 100 minute brevity that it accomplishes a solid superhero story in addition to showing a dense urban ecosystem of corporate executives, the police grunts, research scientists and the pecking order in the criminal element. It also manages very sharp and subtle satire of the privatization ecomonics of Regan era of America with barbs thrown at the dumbing down of media (predating Fox News by years); and it manages to work it no less than 3 fake commercials. If you want more, a lot more, with your comic book movies, here is where it is at.

8 response about Finite Focus: I’d Buy That For A Dollar! (Robocop) »

  1. Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that Robocop actually made his first appearance in this very film. Hence it’s not a comicbook film, it’s a rare case of a franchise actually starting originally on film (not many of those around - The Terminator, The Matrix, what else?). If I’m wrong I’m going to be disappointed because that always was part of the allure of this extraordinary film.

    “(with head shots of nameless terrorists replacing the castration - Welcome to the strange logic of PG-13!)”

    Very nice.

    Comment by Henrik — May 6, 2008 @ 10:54 pm

  2. Robocop is a comic book film in a genre sense, even if there was no actual comic book source. The Highlander and Ghostbusters are both pointedly mentioned above because both of those (very comic-book-ish) films were first executed as screenplays rather than funny-books.

    Comment by Kurt Halfyard — May 6, 2008 @ 11:06 pm

  3. I guess Ghostbusters is another good one. I think Robocop has alot more in common with the R-rated action movies of the 80s in style (although it obviously aims higher thematically), than say Superman which had died out years before. The concept may seem comic booky now, but don’t forget that there is a time-honoured tradition of robots and cyborgs in film the earliest of which predates most of the superhero comic books, and certainly predates the sci-fi superhero comic books. I would say Robocop at its core is more like Fritz Lang seen through a Stan Lee filter, than the other way around.

    Comment by Henrik — May 6, 2008 @ 11:29 pm

  4. ‘Robocop’ is the reason I won’t travel to Detriot. It’s a frightening place. Just like Kurt Russell taught us about Los Angeles…

    Comment by Andy — May 7, 2008 @ 6:28 am

  5. I was lucky to find the OOP Criterion version of this in SF one year. Boy was I happy

    Comment by Agent Orange — May 7, 2008 @ 9:34 am

  6. @Agent - sweet. Now if you could only collect Salo, Hard Boiled, This is Spinal Tap and The Killer, you’d be sitting on a goldmine! Ouch, those OOP Criterions sell for a lot!

    Comment by Kurt — May 7, 2008 @ 10:57 am

  7. Not to turn this into a “mine is bigger than yours” conversation or anything but I actually do have The Killer on Criterion (which was ineed dang pricey), as well as the OOP version of Cronenberg’s Dead Rings which I also got from Aomeba in SF. Booyah!

    Comment by Agent Orange — May 8, 2008 @ 11:04 am

  8. ‘Robocop’ is the reason I won’t travel to Detriot. It’s a frightening place. Just like Kurt Russell taught us about Los Angeles…

    Los Angeles IS a frightening place.

    Comment by Necron_99 — May 8, 2008 @ 5:23 pm

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