RoboCop/Characters

Heroes

Alex J. Murphy / RoboCop

Once a police officer named Alex Murphy, he became the eponymous Cyborg police officer after being shot to death by Clarence Boddicker and his gang during his first day at the job on Detroit's Metro West precint.

Played by Peter Weller (1-2), Robert John Burke (3)

Arm Cannon: Has access to one in the third film. It's also a Fire-Breathing Weapon.
Badass
Catch Phrase: "Dead or alive, you're coming with me."
Character Tic: The iconic trigger-guard spin.
Cowboy Cop: His human side allows him to be one in regards to making decisions.
The Gunslinger: He is between types A and B.
The Other Darrin: Robert John Burke took over Peter Weller's role in the third movie.
Not Himself: After being heavily modified by OCP in 2.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill
We Can Rebuild Him

Anne Lewis

Originally Murphy's partner, and first on the scene after his fatal shooting. Remains assigned to work with him after his cyberization.

Played by Nancy Allen

Badass Normal
Sacrificial Lion / Stuffed Into the Fridge: In the third movie.
Sidekick: Averted. They're very much equals, despite the fact that one's now a Nigh Invulnerable cyborg.

Sergeant Warren Reed

Played by Robert Doqui

A Father to His Men: Reed cares about every cop in his precinct. When Bob Morton reprimands Lewis, Reed sticks up for her. While he was initially protesting OCP bringing in Robocop, upon the second movie he shows just as much concern for him as he would a fellow officer. Even demanding OCP fix him when Cain chops him up.
Badass in Charge: In Robocop3, the man proved it when OCP threatened to take away his pension if he didn't move people out of their homes.
Da Chief
Insignia Rip Off Ritual: see Turn In Your Badge.
Last Stand: Against OCP at the end of Robocop 3.
Reasonable Authority Figure
Turn in Your Badge: Shown in Robocop 3.

Politicians

Poulos

A rather portly individual whom acted as an assistant to Mayor Kuzak of Old Detroit City. He was also a mole working on behalf of Omni Consumer Products looking to get an extra payoff.

Played by Phil Rubenstein

Corrupt Bureaucrat: Willingly sold out to The Old Man so as to earn a cushy bit of stock when OCP builds Delta City over Detroit.
Fat Bastard: On top of being a politician, he's also a sell-out whose shortsighted faith in a corporation of incompetents ended up backfiring on him.
Fat Idiot: He was honestly fool enough to take the word of a bunch of slimeballs with designs of ruining an already run down, crime ridden dystopia with their corpocratic underhanded chagrin's word for a guarantee at wealth and prominence.
Kevlard: Played Straight; then Subverted. Surprisingly enough, Poulos is perforated by Robocop 2's chain gun the first time around and survives. Not so much so the second time around tho.
The Mole: Was this for the power brokers of Omni Consumer's while acting as the Mayor's aid. It didn't end well for him.
Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: His last act of security fraud for big business gets him shot In The Back. TWICE. Literally.

Villains

Clarence Boddicker

A central antagonist of the first movie. He is a crime boss of Old Detroit.

Played by Kurtwood Smith

Bad Boss
Big Bad Duumvirate: With Jones.
BFG: He and his gang get Cobra Assault Cannons to destroy RoboCop.
Evilly Affable
Diabolical Mastermind
Deadpan Snarker
Dragon-in-Chief
Famous Last Words: "Sayonara, RoboCop!"
Hand Cannon: Carries a Desert Eagle with a massive silencer.
Scary Shiny Glasses
You Have Failed Me...: "Can you fly, Bobby?"

Dick Jones

The second main antagonist of the first movie, next to Clarence. He is a corrupt vice president of OCP.

Played by Ronny Cox

Big Bad Duumvirate: With Boddicker.
The Chessmaster
Corrupt Corporate Executive
Dragon-in-Chief: To The Old Man.
Hoist by His Own Petard: He may have added Directive 4, but that went out the window once he gets fired.
Hypocrisy: Cites Murphy as a thing and a violent mechanical psychopath when he has no problem employing psychopaths while being less of a man in his own right.
Straw Hypocrite: Citing the mottos of the Mega Corp he works at while having none of these qualities himself. Although to be fair, it is OCP we're talking about. They suck at upholding their own creed.
- Courage, Jones predictably hid behind the Old man as a hostage when his maleficence had been exposed to the board near the end. Strength, had someone else murder a fellow employee because they upstaged his cheap marketing scam. Conviction? The defective product Jones'd tried to sell for military application and public safety was purposely riddled with design flaws, making it unviable and more prone to gunning down its own armed forces faction or hapless citizens in the street then actually performing to design parameters.
Villainous Breakdown: All throughout the movie, he's been quite the sleaze, but once Robo plays back his confession, he tries to bargain his way out by holding the Old Man hostage.
Villain with Good Publicity

The Old Man

Head of OCP in the first two movies.

Played by Daniel O'Herlihy

Characterization Marches On / Flanderization: In the first movie he shows no serious moral failings, refusing to sell a half-finished, potentially dangerous product and being appalled by his underling's criminal dealings. In the second film he's cheerfully doing everything he opposed in the first.
- Not really; he's not at all bothered by poor Kenny's death, he's more concerned that this malfunction will set them back millions in construction permits and the PR nightmare it will be; he's just not overtly EVIL unlike Dick.
Large Ham
Only Known by Their Nickname: No one ever calls him anything other than "The Old Man."
Smug Snake
Well-Intentioned Extremist: He honestly seems to think his plans for Detroit are for the good of the city as well as his corporation.

Bob Morton

A young up-and-coming executive at the helm of the 'Robocop' project.

Played by Miguel Ferrer

Enforcement Droid series 209 (ED-209)

A battling droid created by Dick Jones.

Voiced by Jon Davison

Achilles' Heel: Never let him go near a staircase.
Awesome but Impractical: His design is just straight-up awesome looking, but as a rushed-out product, his numerous design flaws give him essentially zero practical applications. Except, oddly enough, as a children's toy in Real Life.
Catch Phrase: "Please put down your weapon, you have 20 seconds to comply."
Fan Nickname: Eddy
Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
Mecha Mook
Take That: ED-209's design was partially meant as a jab at then contemporary American car design. Designer Craig Davies claimed he invisioned futuristic designers making the robot look good in order to make it marketable before they made it work well, “just like an American car.” This lead to stuff like the over-designed hydraulics system and the vulnerable radiator grill at the front.

Emil M. Antonowsky

One of Clarence's thugs.

Played by Paul McCrane

Body Horror
Jerkass: Even for a sadistic henchman, he's really obnoxious.
Hollywood Acid: His horrible accident is what made him famous.
I'm Melting

Leon Nash

One of Clarence's thugs.

Played by Ray Wise

Cain

The main antagonist of the second movie, and the distributor of a street drug called "Nuke."

Played by Tom Noonan

Back from the Dead: As Robocop II aka RoboCain.
Big Bad: Of RoboCop 2.
Dark Messiah: What he sees himself as.
Deader Than Dead: Let's see...getting his life support taken off, his brain used to control Robocop 2, then having said brain ripped out and smashed to pieces by Robocop. That's about as dead as you get!
Lean and Mean
Sinister Shades
TV Head Robot

Hob

A young hoodlum who serves as Cain's apprentice in Robocop 2.

Played by Gabriel Damon

The Dragon: To Cain.
Enfant Terrible
Even Evil Has Standards: Hob is horrified when Cain has Officer Duffy eviscerated.
Pragmatic Villainy: His offers to help Mayor Kuzak pay off the city's debts to OCP in exchange for legalizing Nuke is almost reasonable.