Police officer Alex Murphy is on his first patrol through Old Detroit when he is gruesomely murdered by a psychopathic gang. His body is transferred to Omni Consumer Products (OCP), a corporation that is privatizing the Old Detroit police force. They up-cycle Alex’s body into a robot/man hybrid, RoboCop. RoboCop is a better shot, has better firepower, more endurance, and has a variety of other improvements over human cops, like an ability to record bad guys and vet their image against the bad guy database. RoboCop seems like the future of police work, until he comes across a member of the gang that murdered Alex Murphy. When he goes digging into Alex Murphy’s past—his past—he becomes angered by what OCP did to him. When he learns that Old Detroit’s criminal underbelly is in business with OCP, RoboCop goes on an all-out-war on the organization that brought him back into existence.
After watching this flick, I immediately get why they keep trying to remake it. It’s a pretty rock-solid premise, and is timely as heck: privatizing public services, militarizing the police, leveraging AI-tools in crime fighting, humans v. machines, the limits of corporate goodwill, gentrification, a satirical take on hyper-masculinity in policing, etc. This film is predictive about where our justice system is, and is heading, in the way that “Network” was predictive about where mass news media has wound up. And for all of its omniscience, it feels remarkably dated. The way Hollywood did “gritty/grimy” from ‘85 to ‘95 has aged super poorly. From 2015 Hill Valley, to Gotham City, the Fifth Element’s New York City, Old Detroit joins the ranks of other dystopian movie-cities that feel cartoonishly dirty, dysfunctional, and evil. But while I can see why they want to remake this, I think the original is still an unexpected gem. It’s over-the-top blood and guts, caricature of evil bad guys, and cunning advertisement interludes really modify this action film into something of satire. While I think some of the characterizations left something to be desired and the dated production design was distracting, I still thought the film was super entertaining and liked it more than I imagined I would.