RoboCop (Unrated Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]

Killer presentation. Tons of extras. Great movie. Super violent. Movie looks great. Movie still holds up to this day.

BOTTOM LINE: One of the greatest sci-fi/action/drama mash-ups EVER made, from ANY decade. This, the original ROBOCOP, is by far the best version to ever roll off the OCP assembly line; superior in most every aspect to its many sequels, offshoots & remakes. And this fantastic Blu-ray offering from Arrow Video is equally superior to all previous home video editions. Toss any inferior versions you have onto the scrap pile now and pony up for this super-deluxe 2-disc Arrow Blu. 5 STARS THOUGHTS: Such an important touchstone and ground breaker of a film that many are still attempting to emulate its visual & visceral esthetic, more than 30 years later. A movie that not only entertained as a terrific piece of science fiction but also fully delivered as an over-the-top action movie, too. And yet what has helped it remain relevant all these years later is the story behind the hero's humanity, his loss of it & subsequent struggle to reclaim it, which still resonates with audiences who probably were never expecting to be moved in such a way by a film of this type. A true case of capturing lightning in a bottle, ROBOCOP managed to hit all the right notes, from beginning to end: writing, directing, casting, acting, music, production design, visual & practical effects, editing, sound design... everything. THE BLU-RAY: A superlative 2-disc release from Arrow Video, it gives us what is likely the best home video presentation yet. This set offers both the original theatrical cut of the film, as well as the longer Director's Cut. Both versions offer sharp focus, faithful color reproduction, strong sound replication and a wealth of excellent bonus features geared towards the hardcore fanbase of the film. No artifacting, edge enhancement, pixelation, crush or other video uglies to sour your enjoyment of whichever cut you prefer. In short, if you've been hedging on whether to buy a copy of the film yourself, OR if you've been considering upgrading to Blu-ray if you only have the film on DVD or VHS, then THIS is the edition to buy. You won't be disappointed. Highly, highly recommended.

Robocop is one of those fun sci-fi/action movies that's a lot of fun for mature adults. There are a couple of scenes, however, that are quite violent and grisly, while many "F-bombs" and other expletives pepper the entire movie, so maybe younger children should be kept away. In a not-too-distant dystopian future, the huge Omni Consumer Products corporation (OCP) is contracted to run the Detroit police department, which is struggling with rampant crime. What OCP needs are police officers that are indestructible, so they study the possibility of building robots to replace human police officers. When Officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is all but killed in the line of duty, OCP decides to salvage his brain and a few other body parts and combine them with a robotic body to create a cyborg policeman. Murphy, it turns out, has the temperament required to live as a cyborg. OCP also builds another gigantic and purely robotic machine, "ED 209" (Enforcement Droid 209) with devastating firepower, and markets it as an improved, "urban pacification" police robot. OCP's actual intention is to sell ED 209s to the military as super soldiers, but first, ED 209 has to prove itself capable of "pacifying" Detroit. Robocop Murphy goes after the man who killed him, a drug and criminal kingpin, Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith), “unofficial crime boss of old Detroit,” who's in cahoots with Dick Jones (Ronny Cox), Senior President of OCP. Since Murphy proves to be a "one-off" (impossible to duplicate) success, OCP upper management wants to kill him off. This is so the military will forget about him and instead consider buying Ed 209s as battlefield soldier droids (a contract worth billions). Eventually, Robocop and an ED 209 have an epic showdown inside the top executive floor of OCP tower. Bullets and missiles fly profusely and indiscriminately. Robocop is a thoughtful, multifaceted sci-fi/action film that feels like it could actually happen thirty or forty years in the future. I would rate it as one of the best and most influential sci-fi/action films of the 1980s, although it is actually a successful movie franchise that continues up to 2014. Don't forget to bring plenty of popcorn!

I've owned the Criterion edition of "Robocop" for years now so I bought this 20th anniversary DVD strictly for the featurettes. The Commentary with Director Paul Verhoeven, Writer Ed Neumeier and Executive Producer Jon Davison (A+) is still great and worth the price of admission right there. I would rank the best featurettes in this order (No spoilers): Villains Of Old Detroit Featurette(A+) , Special Effects: Then And Now Featurette(A), Robocop: Creating A Legend Featurette(A), (all three recent productions) Flesh And Steel: The Making Of Robocop Featurette(A), Shooting Robocop Featurette(B) & Making Robocop Featurette(B) (Older productions). Since we've all seen the movie, I would recommend that if this movie is in your top ten all time, buy this 20th anniversary edition, those first three featurettes plus the commentary are worth the purchase price alone. I was disappointed by the deleted scenes. I had read about their content but they ended up adding nothing to the experience but no matter, still nice to see them. If you are debating on purchasing the Robo-trilogy instead to save money, don't even considering buying the 20th anniversary edition. IMHO, the 20th anniversary edition is strictly for the Robo-connoisseurs, those who truly love and "get" the movie with all it's extreme violence, innuendoes and political satire. "I'd buy that for a dollar!" The movie is the movie, we've all seen it. It's Verhoeven best work. The violence and intensity pull you in and pound you senselessly. The humanity and humor make it roller coaster ride with an ending that is as satisfying as it is unexpected. Easily one of the best Sci-Fi or action movies of all time. Two versions here, the theatrical version and I believe the director's original "X-rated" version. I have to defer to others as to the exact cut of this version vs. what appears on the Criterion disk, no frame by frame analysis here. Peter Weller does appear in some of the featurettes as well. If you are wondering what he's been up to outside of the entertainment industry, Weller holds a Masters Degree in Roman and Renaissance Art, and is an occasional lecturer at Syracuse University on the subject of Hollywood and the Roman Empire. Wow, how cool is that? "Good business is where you find it." Go Robo!

I had forgotten how brutal and violent this movie was. It's still worth a watch. The ugliness of the violence matches the ugliness of the times this movie was made. And the way the media is portrayed is spot on, regardless of the times we live in.

Not sure if this is a true director's cut as I didn't notice anything more than a little action. Movie is still good and had to replace my copy that became damaged. There are deleted scenes and the making of to enjoy.

Here's the deal, if you ever claimed to be a fan of the original ROBOCOP, then you have to get the 4K Remastered Edition Bluray that just released. I pre-ordered it for $9 but now the price is about $11 but it's still such a great deal for this release of the film! Let me preface by saying that I watched this film as a kid on VHS and before I became a filmmaker. So watching this (projected on an 8 foot screen) would be my 1st viewing of the film in hi-res and at native 24p (I'll explain how that's important). The brilliance of the film is that it starts with a video broadcast of the news that is in the low-fidelity of the TV of old. But then it cuts to the full glory or future Detroit (which apparently was shot in Dallas TX) the sharp, sprawling details of the wide angle lenses shooting low angled city skylines is like the current trend of cutting from 35mm film to spectacular 70mm IMAX (like what Nolan did with THE DARK KNIGHT). It's like night vs day, small vs big, TV vs cinema. The 4K output to 1080p HD is excellent and it's as if Verhoeven shot it in IMAX or with that IMAX sensibility of composition (I'm exaggerating a little but it's to make a point). Now as much as I've always loved ROBOCOP, even as a kid I found the ED-209 stop motion to be a little off-putting - it always looked like a scale model and the motion always looked jittery. But here's where I was surprised the most. At native 24 frames per second and at full HD, ED-209 looks incredibly detailed and menacing. The stop motion is much less distracting than when I watched the film in SD resolution telecined to 29.976 fps. I really think the telecine process is what killed a lot of the model work in ROBOCOP but this Bluray rectifies that. I don't even think a CG ED-209 would be that much of an improvement and that's also because Verhoeven and company utilized a full scale model in many shots. Of course there are a handful of stop motion shots that still don't quite deliver but they're not critical shots in my opinion. And here's another revelation I had watching this film as a filmmaker. Blanks and Squibs and performance. ROBOCOP is not just a film that used real full flash blanks and real blood-pack squibs, but it's a film that went big with explosives. And you can see this in how the actors really squint - not only when they get hit and a squib explodes, but even when they just shoot a gun the muzzle flashes are so big and sparky and smokey that actors squint and flinch with every trigger pull. That makes a huge performance difference to me when compared to all the digital muzzle flashes and blood hits being added to gunshots these days (and I've done my share of CG gunshots!). Finally, the sound is decent. The 1st time ED-209 fires his guns they sounded a bit a hollow which worried me. But when Robocop fires his signature 3-burst hand canon, it was nice and bassy and that distinct sound of bad-assery that I remember. I could go on about the merits of the film itself: the tight writing, the memorable lines, the iconic performances, the timeless visuals. But I enjoy conversing about those details over writing about them. And this Bluray really brings out the best in those conversations. So check it out, enjoy it, then call me - we'll talk then. Oh and seriously, f*** the remake.

The 1987 classic "Robocop" is one of my top ten favorite films of all time as well as my favorite Paul Verhoeven film to date as well. I can't say much more about this excellent film that hasn't already been said but if you are one of the very few that hasn't checked out this amazing film yet that has aged like a fine wine, then the new remastered blu-ray is the perfect way to do just that. MGM originally released Robocop as a bare bones blu-ray all the way back in 2007 in the unrated director's cut form. There had been a previous blu-ray prepared by Sony I believe that actually got released to some DVD/blu-ray review sites but the picture quality was horrible and that led to MGM releasing their own blu-ray with better picture quality. While that 2007 blu-ray did look better than the last DVD, it was lacking in a lot of areas not the least being that it had none of the extras from any of the prior DVD special editions. They eventually released Robocop 2 & 3 in a trilogy box set along with the original film but that set also featured that original MGM blu-ray while Robocop 2 & 3 looked considerably better as they were much newer HD masters done at that point and time. A year or two ago, it was announced that a new fully restored & remastered at 4K resolution print had been prepared under direct supervision of director Paul Verhoeven and the original cinematographer. This new print of the unrated director's cut made the rounds to various major cities in which cast & crew Q&A's occured after the film was shown. It is this same restored print that made its way to this new blu-ray. How does it compare to the older blu-ray? In a nutshell, it blows it away without even trying. I saw Robocop in theaters back in 1987 and even though my memory might not be the best it used to be, I don't remember this movie looking this amazing during its original theatrical run. It's very obvious that a lot of care and attention went into this new HD remaster and restoration of this classic film. The film retains a very nice filmic grain structure and I saw no instances of any digital noise reduction (also referred to as grain scrubbing) done to the film. The flesh tones in particular are much warmer and the colors (in particular the copius amounts of blood) have greatly improved as well. The film is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. This might upset purists a bit as director Paul Verhoeven has stated that his preferred aspect ratio for the film is 1.66:1. The old non-anamorphic Criterion DVD is the only release so far to present the film in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. In Europe back at that time, 1.66:1 was considered the normal matted theatrical exhibition aspect ratio while in the U.S., 1.85:1 was the norm. Even though the 1.85:1 matting is just a wee bit tighter, at no point did I notice any information on the top or bottom seeming cramped or cut off. Essentially, the film looks absolutely breathtaking on this new blu-ray and I doubt that we'll ever see it look any better than it does here. One thing though that I do need to mention is that some of the additional unrated violence footage does look a bit softer and more washed out compared to the rest of the film but this has always plagued the unrated version even going back as far as the non-anamorphic Criterion DVD. I'm not sure if the original negative elements were lost for these additional shots that the MPAA forced them to trim out to avoid an X rating at the time but while the change in quality is noticeable, it isn't drastic enough to pull you out of the film and only amounts to less than a minute of footage. I compared it to the older blu-ray (as well as the even older 2 disc special edition DVD) and in my eyes, it was like night and day. The audio is presented in multi-channel lossless HD audio too and will really shake your housing foundation if you have a great sound setup. MGM this time saw fit to port almost every single extra from the previous DVD sets with the only exception being a photo gallery that I could notice. That means you get the commentary from the 2 disc MGM DVD special edition, all of the excellent making of documentaries and some deleted scenes. There is a great new extra that was added to this release in the form of a cast & crew Q&A from 2012 that runs a little over 42 minutes. There's a ton of great information contained in this new extra and it's great that MGM saw fit to add something of great value to this release in addition to porting over the majority of the prior extras from the DVD sets. At the time I am writing this review, Amazon and retailers like Best Buy are selling this new blu-ray for only 7.99. That is a steal as I would have happily paid 15 bucks for it. This is easily one of the best HD restorations of a classic film done to date and is the best that Robocop has ever looked or sounded. I can't recommend it enough. I'd buy that for a dollar!