The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

Director: W. D. Richter

Cast: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. A handful of times.

Did I Like It: And in the past, I’ve never been a huge fan of it. Certainly not like other people do. I had decided somewhere along the line that this was just one of those films that I didn’t “get” like The Princess Bride (1987) or the Lord of the Rings series.

But as I continue with my creative work some of these last few years, I finally have begun to define just what my genre is. It’s not science fiction, certainly not of the hard variety to be sure. It’s not really historical fiction, per se, especially because I tend to not be able to help myself when it comes to sending my characters traveling through time. A reductivist will occasionally delight in calling it fan fiction, and if you hold true to that, the only defense I’ve been able to offer in the past i that I will occasionally delve into meta-fiction.

But that last term has never been able to cover it, really. All this time I’ve been trying to work in the milieu of neo-pulp.

And you’d be hard pressed to find a better example of whatever that might mean than this film. Clearly I needed to give it another chance, right?

And with that clarity of mindset going into the film, I definitely enjoyed it for what it is. The plot is a an elaborate confection of pulpy goodness, and the cast—especially Weller—has more than enough charisma to float things across any rough spots.

So what is the problem I’ve had with the film this whole time? I honestly think it was the film’s score. IT’s a bit too precious for its own good, and honestly, I’m still not a fan of it.

Robocop 2 (1990)

Director: Irvin Kershner

Cast: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Daniel O’Herlihy, Tom Noonan

Have I Seen It Before?: A number of times, and usually under protest. More on that later. One memorable screening of the film took plaace on a stormy night in December 2007. People in the area will remember the massive ice storm that made mincemeat out of my town that month. I popped in my DVD of the film the night of that storm. The power went out and stayed that way for the better part of a week to get the power back. After I returned to my apartment from the holidays, it was 2008 before I could put my life back together…

Er… I mean, finish watching the movie.

Did I like it?: Not unlike the flood of Prime Directives that waylay Robo (Weller, in his final appearance in the role; he fled like the R-rating did from the series) in the second act, this film is only a list of ideas, at best.

There are those aforementioned Prime Directives. By implying that nay degree of social consciousness would make policework impossible, the film certainly ages itself, but it’s an interesting commentary (if no less problematic) on the action movies of the era.  People wonder how Frank Miller became such a fascist nutjob over the years, but the seeds were even here, in his mangled screenplay.

The notion that OCP is struggling just as much as the filmmakers in their efforts to make a newer, better Robocop is more meta commentary than Kershner or Miller probably intended, but it still stands.

The film even maintains the absurd television commercials and satire of the original. While the Media Break sequences aren’t quite as sharp here, the sequence where a little league team has its depraved charms. It’s sad that when this one was nowhere near as successful as the original, the various rights holders to the property over the years missed the lesson, and damned the future of law enforcement to the limbo that is PG-13 to this day.

But none of it comes together in any kind of a satisfying package. The original film is so steeped in Campbellian hero myth that it can’t help but stand the test of time. This falls flat. There is no vision here, just a checklist. Irvin Kershner had wild success with Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), so when Orion needed a sequel, he was the guy to bring in. He never directed another feature after this. The most baffling element of the film is Leonard Rosenman’s score. He must have been on some list due to his work on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), but this is such a complete abandonment of the marches put in place by Basil Poledouris, that every time the choir (yes, choir) chants “ROBOCOP!” one can’t help but notice how far the series has gone off course. Even Robocop 3 (1993) managed to course-correct on that front.

Robocop (1987)

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Cast: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith

Have I Seen It Before?: There’s something fascinating about the image of Robocop, as exemplified in the poster above. It enflamed the imagination of this reviewer as a child (and I’m willing to hazard a guess that I wasn’t the only one). Whenever it would air on network TV, it was appointment viewing. By the time I could procure R-rated films (and it is one of the R-iest R-rated films to come down the pike), it was one of the first I got my hands on.

Did I like it?: And it didn’t disappoint. In truth, the reality is that this film makes me angry. There’s a point about three-fourths through the film where I become pointedly depressed that in my own efforts, I’m never going to make anything as good as this. This film is so good that I have infinite patience for anything with the Robocop name on it, even when that patience is continuously tested by an endless series of lame attempts (that steadfastly avoid any understanding of what makes this film so special) to recapture the glory displayed here.

It is equal parts biting satire (that has become increasingly true), and pure Campbellian hero myth. It’s a silly title, but for my money, it’s a perfect movie.

And, yet… Now we live in an era where it is difficult to look at a cop in a film as a hero, much less a tragic one. It’s also an action movie from the 1980s; you can play any random thirty seconds and find a handful of problematic things. Take his prime directives, an attempt at a heroic code:

1.       Serve the Public Trust

2.       Protect the Innocent

3.       Uphold the Law

4.       (CLASSIFIED) Any attempt to arrest an officer of Omni Consumer Products results in shutdown.

The fourth directive is clearly the main fuel of stories involving the characters, but when you dig into it further, his very design is fascist. Everyone is theoretically innocent until proven guilty, but Robocop (Weller) has no problem eviscerating (and castrating) piles of crooks long before they’ve been able to see an attorney. With a logical flaw in his overriding programming, it’s a wonder Robo didn’t join the HAL 9000 in trying to obliterate every full-human being in sight just to make logical sense of the world.

There may be good cops, but the system is not interested in letting them stay good. That the slightest wisps of a human being encased in military hardware can still reach for their own humanity, maybe there is some hope. It is, after all, a fantasy.