Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment

An in-depth look at Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi classic, RoboCop.

As with their documentary about IT, directors Eastwood Allen and Christopher Griffiths go very deep with their retrospective on RoboCop. All the talent are here, from writers, director, to stars, and at nearly five hours long it must be the last word on the subject. Is it too long? That really depends on how much detail you crave, and if you watch it in hourly chunks, it’s a rewarding experience.

We begin on the Warner Bros lot where co-writer Ed Neumeier first got the inspiration for the movie, then move on to financing the film, finding a director, its stars and special makeup effects artist. We hear about the issues with the suit, finding the right shooting location, the stop-motion effects… you get the picture.

So many anecdotes… Did you know that the officers at the police station were named after serial killers, or that ED-209’s voice was that of producer Jon Davison? And Peter Weller appears to have had a great time in his trailer! What’s also clear is that there was a lot of friction between director, producer, lead and writer. So much so that some clearly have not made peace with each other, but through this friction was created a masterpiece.

The four episodes will be streamed weekly on the Icon FIlm Channel from 2/10 and then available as a Blu-ray collector’s edition on 18/12.

Verdict: A warts and all deepest of dives from those who were there on the frontline of a sci-fi classic. 9/10

Nick Joy