Funny Movie, Bad Reality

RoboCop was a movie unlike many others I've ever seen. I had no prior knowledge about it at all and have never seen anything else from this director, Paul Verhoeven. Until the company name Orion appeared on the screen I had no idea what to expect. Based on other Orion films though, such as Maximum Overdrive, I instantly knew I was in for quite a ride. I usually love low-budget science fiction movies for some odd reason, maybe because I get some small amount of joy when I can the strings that are making the spaceships "fly" or because the acting is just so classy.

On top of all those joys though, RoboCop had other things to offer soceity. It was anything but the action-packed, futuistic film it appears to be on the surface- it was a satire commenting on the evils of privatization. The company OPC was trying to take over Detroit from its hospitals to its drug rings to its police force... All so that it would be top dog when Detroit was flattened and rebuilt as the all new Delta City. What it came down to was a situation very akin to Big Brother in 1984. OPC had its ahnd in everything to the point where people had no choices at all and humanity wasn't a part of the equation anymore.

The inhumanity of the story is what really got to me. I could look at all the farce throughout the rest of the movie an laugh. The commercials, news breaks, and even the prospect of privatizing this "unprofitable businesses" such as hospitals and prisons were all easy to find humor in, but the idea of a "RoboCop" creeped me out. When Murphy died one of the most grotesque deaths I've seen in a while, I thought it couldn't get any worse. I was wrong. When he woke up to find himself part of a science experiment I got chills imagining myself in his shoes. I think that would honsetly be the worst possible situation to live with- having human feelings and knowledge of your past life, but knowing that you are incapable of being human at all. It'd be hard to go back to your wife and kids when only your face is still made of flesh and blood. None of the blood, guts, and murder got to me as much as thinking about the reality Murphy now had to face everyday.