Robocop - 1987

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Edward Neumeier & Michael Miner

Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Kurtwood Smith

"Your move, creep." It's one-liners like this that make Robocop enthralling and loathsome simultaneously. The film allegedly takes place in a dystopian future version of Detriot, although a year is never made explicit. Any scenes involving either the ED-209 (big scary robot) or gore shows the film's age, but otherwise it holds up very well overall. Kurtwood Smith, who you know as the dad from That 70's Show, portrays one of the most detestable (in a good way) on-screen villains I've ever seen, and despite the robotic nature of Peter Weller's Alex Murphy, the actor emotes with the best of them, thanks to a remarkable something-or-other that I can't figure out (as seen in the photo above). What really pushed this movie over the top for me, however, are the satirical news and advertising segments interspersed throughout. One news story talks about the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka Star Wars) program malfunctioning and subsequently causing forest fires in southern California. Here's another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSSVt7Mfkk Wasn't that great?

And you may have noticed I "forgot" to give a plot synopsis for this one. While I think Robocop is fairly straightforward, someone's done it far better than I ever could, so you'll get theirs instead. Two caveats: beware of spoilers and British accents. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUnMF7dV86k Enjoy!