Robocop -- 1987 -- R

I'd seen this quite some time ago as I vividly recalled the line, "I'll buy that for a dollar." Nice little film that follows the "superhero" formula where we get to see how this character came to be hearking easily towards future sequels.

We start with a future where a corporation owns the law enforcement. This corporation has a security division that is working to create a police robot to handle the dangerous situations. When the senior person's idea kills someone, a junior exec jumps with his Robocop idea and they just need a candidate (i.e. someone on the force to die). Well, the get one pretty quickly (they had estimated 40 days), and he gets hooked up to the machinery and becomes Robocop.

But all is not a cheery bed of roses. They sidestep the cliche of him going crazy and killing everyone, and instead go with a guy who remembers how he died and everything and everyone he lost when he did. It really works well to evoke some solid sympathy for our walking bucket of bolt.

While he is remembering, he takes down criminals all over the police, some of whom remember killing him. This sets him on a journey to find this guy and his cohorts in a sort of vendetta against them for killing him. He is stopped, though, by his prime directives for obeying the law.

It's a fun movie to watch, and works very well plot wise. Robocop was a rather well-rounded and sympathetic fellow, but not many of the other characters are. We definitely get some sympathy for him when everyone turns against him for doing what is right. It does get a little gory here and there, but it works well within the structure of the storyline.

So great flick from the eighties. Worth checking out if you're not sure what else to put on.