Metacritic reviews

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

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

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.

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

Robocop is a thriller with a difference.

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.

Great effects and a nasty undercurrent drive this vehicle.

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]

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.

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.