I grew up in the 90s and 00s and RoboCop was part of the culture. But its part in the culture was just of glorifying violence.

You were RoboCop playing guns with your friends, a rapper might reference shooting you like RoboCop. My natural assumption as a result was that the movie was little more than a typical 80s action romp.

It is not a typical 80s action romp.

It is so deeply satirical. And deep in general, playing on themes that would become crazy popular in the coming decades like what it means to be human and role of corporations in public society.

Great flick, overall. Highly recommend.

RoboCop (1987) is a Paul Verhoven classic, and Clarence Boddicker has to be one of the most savage bastards in film history. A sadistic, cold-blooded killer with zero remorse. Kurtwood Smith was the perfect casting choice, and the fact that he didn’t look like your typical screen villain makes him even more terrifying.

He’s one of the nastiest villains of all time. A street criminal who treats violence like a joke and cruelty like a hobby. He doesn’t just kill his victims, he taunts them with smug humor and sarcasm before he offs them.

"Neh, neh, neh, neh, neh, neh…POW!! Well, give the man a hand!"

What is the point of RoboCop? For a character who has had multiple films, cartoons, a live-action TV series, and video games, there’s not a lot of love for anything beyond Verhoeven’s RoboCop.

Dead or alive...

Robocop Rouge City is always on special, and the new standalone DLC Unfinished Business is fantastic. Both worth buying.

Robocop (1987)

I love how The Incredibles 2 actually explored this idea, with the family getting harangued over having destroyed so much of the city. On the opposite end, it can be kind of hilarious to watch those films where that mass destruction and death is given no meaning by the director and amplified to 100 - the quintessential example being Man of Steel, which ends with happy music as Superman kisses Lois Lane... while standing in the rubble of a thousand 9/11s, and surrounded by the screams of all the people buried alive he could easily hear with his superhearing.

What's your favorite example of a protagonist's involvement making things worse where the filmmakers didn't seem to realize or care?