A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

Ironically I have always found Paul Verhoeven's ever-popular Robocop to be his least satisfying American film.  As ever with the director, nothing is as it first seems, with the film working on all kinds of ironic and satirical levels, but for once I just didn't think he quite got the message across well enough, with the film verging on being as poor as what it was intending to parody.  The director turned to Basil Poledouris for the second time for the music, after Flesh + Blood (on which the composer tried to out-Rozsa Rozsa, and in some ways succeeded); this time round the resulting score is different, but the composer still fashioned an admirably old-fashioned orchestral heart to the music.  It's different because he blended that with electronics in a way as sophisticated and organic as Jerry Goldsmith would do on the director's next movie, Total Recall.

The music is boisterous and ballsy throughout, unashamedly masculine, based around a powerful main theme (not too dissimilar to the one the composer provided for Starship Troopers, his third and - so far - final collaboration with the director, a decade later).  It forms the core of many of the cues, but it is a piece of great malleability, allowing Poledouris to throw it through innumerable variations in coming up with a particularly free-flowing score.  Of course, a score like this is going to feature a lot of action music, and the composer does not disappoint: "Murphy's Death", "Robo vs Ed-209" and others are great pieces, showing off a side to the composer unfortunately not heard very often; and "Showdown" is a particularly powerful and majestic piece, perhaps the album's highlight.  Poledouris is perhaps the only modern film composer able to write music like this that's as natural-sounding as Goldsmith's and fits the film like a glove, but he does it so rarely (by choice or otherwise, I'm not sure).

What is most impressive about Robocop is how well it flows from one point to the next.  Unlike most action scores, it isn't just a collection of set-pieces (most aren't even that, come to think of it), it actually moves along, maintains a real pace and energy.  Coupled with Poledouris's great gift for creating appealing orchestral music, this is easily one of his most satisfying scores.  This is a 2003 re-release by Varese Sarabande, whose original release of this score was long out of print, and features four short bonus cuts, all of them being short, satirical pieces for the tv commercial parodies in the movie.  A great album which effectively brings together golden age sensibilities and a more modern-day approach. 

Tracks

1. Main Title (:39)
2. Van Chase (4:51)
3. Murphy's Death (2:36)
4. Rock Shop (3:42)
5. Home (4:15)
6. Robo vs Ed-209 (2:07)
7. The Dream (3:06)
8. Across the Board (1:50)
9. Betrayal (2:18)
10. Clarence Frags Bob (1:43)
11. Care Package (2:09)
12. Robo Drives to Jones (1:46)
13. We Killed You (1:44)
14. Directive IV (1:03)
15. Showdown (5:15)
16. Have a Heart (:31)
17. OCP Monitors (1:15)
18. Nuke 'Em (:26)
19. Big is Better (:27)