Violence, gore, bad verses good—Robocop was chock full of these aspects. If you are in need of releasing a little pent up aggression via vicarious movie viewing, then Robocop is for you. Unfortunately, the bloody scenes were a bit much for me. I’m sure the people sitting behind me got a good laugh out of watching me cringe throughout the entire film. I have never been one who enjoys watching body parts get blown off every which way. Even with this being true, I have grown up watching movies such as this, and continue to do so today.
Granted they may not have the quite the amount of gore that Robocop does, but they come close: Gladiator, The Matrix Trilogy, the LOTR trilogy and several other “guy” movies are ones that I have seen over and over again. On one hand, this doesn’t make sense; I do not enjoy violence in movies (I’m not protesting it, I just don’t enjoy it). And yet I have a repertoire of these type of movies built up. I guess I can attribute it to my dad, brother, the mass of boys (my brother’s friends. He’s only a few years younger than me), and my guy friends. Oh well, I
guess I enjoy the company. One thing I feel like I have gained due to this is a good comparison and knowledge of action type films.
The major issue that really caught my eye in this week’s movie is the lack of restraint that not only the villains seemed to show, but Robocop and the “good guys” as well. Murder, whether a cop or a criminal, was no big deal. Granted, some of the villains that were killed did deserve to die but that is one of the huge differences between Robocop and modern day action flicks. Batman, Spiderman, Superman—rarely do you see these celebrated superheroes kill a single fly, much less a human. These guys are creative and skilled in what they do. They are always finding some way to rig up the criminal so that the cops can find him and haul him off to jail. To e, this is the way things should be. What justifies the killing? Who is are the Detroit police force or Robocop to make the decision to take human lives? This is one huge factor that in my book, denies Robocop of hero status. He may have a human heart, but in then end thanks to his lack of restraint and compassion, I can see no difference between his and the villain’s heart.
It seems like you require heroes to have some kind of constraint. Why is this such an important requirement? Is it to ensure that they cannot become corrupted? Or is it because good can never be as directly powerful as evil for you?
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