RoboCop

Orion Pictures Corporation | Release Date: July 17, 1987

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

70	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

The GuardianPeter Bradshaw

RoboCop looks more than ever like Verhoeven’s masterpiece, a classic of 80s Hollywood and apart from everything else a brilliant commentary on the city of Detroit; hi-tech RoboCop is a harbinger of the decline of the automotive industry and the ruin-porn wasteland to come. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Robocop is as tightly worked as a film can be, not a moment or line wasted. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

A first-rate production full of nonstop action and inventive special effects but what truly makes Robocop spellbinding is a superior script. Read full review

EmpireClark Collis

It was this love of mayhem combined with a biting comic attack on neo-fascist corporatism - most notably seen in the TV ads for products like the apocalyptic board game Nuke 'Em - which helped raise Robocop above the common sci-fi herd. Read full review

Rita Kempley

With its droll underpinnings, Robocop does for cyborgs and Detroit what "Blade Runner" did for androids and L.A. Read full review

Desson Thomson

Robocop is one weird and entertaining hybrid of camp and sci-fi shoot-'em-up. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

Despite a level of lurid violence that may offend many, this movie has a motor humming inside. It's been assembled with ferocious, gleeful expertise, crammed with humor, cynicism and jolts of energy. In many ways, it's the best action movie of the year. [17 Jul 1987]

Roger Ebert

Robocop is a thriller with a difference. Read full review

Mike Clark

Though Robocop is too well-crafted to be entirely loathsome, it's at best an amoral goof. Yet like the comparably silly Lethal Weapon, it cynically pushes all the right action-audience buttons. Better duck - here comes a monster hit. [17 Jul 1987]

Jay Carr

[Verhoeven's] cold, slick, funny, high-powered movie is informed by a humanism this genre almost always abandons in its chase after vigilante splat. [17 Jul 1987]

Walter Goodman

Paul Verhoeven, a Dutch director ("Soldier of Orange"), doesn't let the furiously futuristic plot get in the way of the flaming explosions, shattering glass and hurtling bodies. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

Great effects and a nasty undercurrent drive this vehicle. Read full review

Stephen Cole

Robocop isn't going to win Verhoeven any medals - the focus remains on action, guns and gore - but it's a flashy movie with enough wit to be more than just another dumb bucket of bolts. [17 Jul 1987]

David Sterritt

The action is skillfully directed by Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, and there are many bursts of razor-sharp social satire. But the story amounts to a celebration of brute force in a crudely etched law-and-order context. Read full review

Pat Graham

There's a brooding, agonized quality to the violence that almost seems subversive, as if Verhoeven were both appalled and fascinated by his complicity in the toxic action rot. Read full review

Peter Stack

It's a violent yet occasionally funny film - thanks to some inventive gags that pop up - and it hits some of the same blood-splashed chords as "Terminator." [17 Jul 1987]

Dave Kehr

Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop is a stylish piece of work that leaves a sour aftertaste. [17 Jul 1987]