Entertainment
The Best Way To Watch RoboCop Completely Ruins The Movie
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
For this ‘80s kid, RoboCop (1987) is one of the best films ever made. As a young movie nerd, I watched the movie for its spectacle, including conniving bad guys, kooky sci-fi, and some of the best action scenes in Hollywood history. Growing older, though, I realized the real strength of the movie was its trenchant satire and social commentary. Director Paul Verhoeven held an unflinching mirror up to America, and he willingly interrupts his sci-fi opus with fake ads meant to highlight the inevitable dangers of where society was headed.
Now, RoboCop is streaming for free on Tubi, and this is arguably the best way to watch this ‘80s epic. You see, Tubi is a free streaming platform with ads embedded into every film, which is fine: a few ads are a small price to pay for this streamer’s sprawling platform of titles. However, the ads on Tubi have arguably gotten weirder than ever, including AI slop being used to sell everything from pay-to-win apps to gambling services. Now, in a truly meta moment, you can stream Verhoeven’s vision of future America and compare how strange our modern advertisements have become to the hilarious fake ads he created nearly four decades ago.
Cops And Robots
The premise of RoboCop is that in a dystopian Detroit, law enforcement is now handled by a creepy megacorporation. They want to be tough on crime, so they take a recently slain police officer and revive him inside a cybernetic body. Now, as RoboCop, this mechanical lawman is the bane of criminals throughout the city. However, there is still a glimmer of humanity beneath his dark visor, and that spark of who he was may help the city’s top cop save the day. Assuming, of course, it doesn’t get him killed before that can happen.
The cast of RoboCop includes some very fun surprises, including Ray Wise (best known for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me) and Ronny Cox (best known for Total Recall). The movie also stars Kurtwood Smith (best known for That ‘70s Show) as one of the most memorable villains to ever grace an action movie. But the real star of the show is Peter Weller (otherwise best known for The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension), who is amazing as both hero cop Alex Murphy and RoboCop, a technological powerhouse who may very well be the future of law enforcement.
As an ‘80s kid myself, I had a simpler view of RoboCop. When I was younger, I loved the fact that the title character looked like an action figure, and that he fought bad guys as two-dimensional as the ones in my beloved Saturday morning cartoons. It helped, of course, that the very concept of this hero felt like something out of the fevered imagination of a sugar-addled child. After all, what’s cooler than a cop in the eyes of a kid? A robot cop, naturally!
Ironically, as I grew older, I appreciated how RoboCop functioned as a hilariously on-the-nose criticism of America’s police force. The individual cops are mostly decent people trying to make their city a better place, but they are caught up in a corporatized system that prioritizes profits over people. That system will do more than chew you up and kill you: it will then transform you into a robot zombie whose only function is to reduce human jobs and increase shareholder values. Regardless of your personal politics, that message is more resonant today than it ever was back in the waning twilight of Reagan’s America.
Tomorrow’s Future Shock, Today
Like many great franchises, no future films or shows were able to capture the magic of the first RoboCop film. Without Paul Verhoeven’s deft touch, later installments focused only on the surface-level coolness of having a nearly unkillable cop fighting everything from high-tech gangbangers to rival robots.
But it’s the satire that makes this first film an enduring classic, and the satire manages to be as hilarious as it is incisive. The most blatant satire comes from the bevy of fake ads that remind you that this is a world in which sex, violence, drugs, and even robotic cops are all just ways that a soulless corporation will try to sell you something.
Watching the film on Tubi now truly does make RoboCop that much more surreal, as your film about a corporate dystopia obsessed with money is periodically broken up by AI ads created by companies that didn’t want to pay real actors. In retrospect, Verhoeven gave us the most potent kind of satire: the one that accurately portrayed our own bleak future with unflinching accuracy and undeniable style.
RoboCop himself poses existential nightmare questions for audiences: like, how can anybody rage against the machine when the system makes us part of its gears? Today’s corpse is tomorrow’s cop, proving that even death cannot free you from the endless reach of our corporate overlords.
If you want to experience this eerily prescient movie in the best possible way, you don’t have to spend so much as a dollar. All you have to do is stream RoboCop for free on Tubi. Afterward, you might just spend the rest of your life quoting it. Because of that, make sure everyone in the room is cool before you start trying out your best impersonation of Kurtwood Smith’s hilariously iconic line: “b*tches leave!”
Entertainment
Shark devices on sale ahead of Amazons Big Spring Sale: Stick vacuums, stain removers, hair tools
A quick look at the best Amazon Shark deals ahead of the Big Spring Sale
There are few home categories that Shark doesn’t have a stake in. Floor care has been its bread and butter for a while, of course. But skincare, hair care, and and air care, too? It’s Dyson-level variety at this point. But when it comes to deals during major Amazon sale events, there are typically more good Shark deals than good Dyson deals. The early deals of Amazon’s 2026 Big Spring Sale tell the same story.
We’re tracking all of the best early deals on Shark vacuums, Shark beauty tools, Shark air purifiers, and more, live ahead of the sale’s March 25 kickoff. A handful of our absolute favorite Shark products are already on sale, but we’ll be updating this story as more deals on Shark devices trickle in throughout the week. (Fingers crossed for a legit CryoGlow red light mask deal.)
Best Shark vacuum deal
$249
at Amazon
$399.99
Save $150.99
Why we like it
It’ll be hard for any spring vacuum deal to beat this Shark Clean & Empty model as the best affordable stick vacuum setup. It automatically empties itself and charges every time you hang it back up on the dock (which also acts as built-in storage). That means you’re starting every cleaning session with an empty dustbin, and that means you’ll have unmistakeable visible proof of the gunk that’s been sucked up in the room at hand.
It’s not Shark’s most powerful self-emptying stick vacuum, but it is almost 40 percent cheaper than Shark’s most powerful self-emptying stick vacuum when it’s on sale. Weighing in at just under six pounds, this Clean & Empty model is lighter than most cordless vacuums out there — including 30 percent lighter than the popular Shark Vertex Pro, which doesn’t come with an auto-empty dock.
What about Shark robot vacuum deals?
The Shark robot vacuums on sale so far are decent if you really want a Shark, but I hesitate to hit full send on recommending one unless it’s the PowerDetect UV Reveal 2-in-1: The best Shark robot vacuum right now. The $1,299.99 robot vacuum and mop combo with blacklight stain detect hasn’t even been out for a month, and the chances of it seeing a discount this soon are iffy. If you have $300 or $600 to spend on a robot vacuum this spring, there are more value-packed robot vacuum deals from other brands live at Amazon.
Mashable Trend Report
More early Shark Big Spring Sale deals
Robot vacuums
Cordless vacuums
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Skincare devices
Upright and portable carpet and upholstery cleaners
Air purifiers
Entertainment
The best early Big Spring Sale deals at Amazon include record-low prices on portable power stations
Table of Contents
Best early Amazon Big Spring Sale portable power stations deals at a glance
Amazon saw the sun setting later, smelled flowers blooming, and felt warmer temps and decided to celebrate. The Amazon Big Spring Sale is slated to kick off tomorrow, March 25, with big discounts. That’s proving to be great news if you’re in the market for a portable power station.
A portable power station has become a must-have tech item. It’s like your favorite noise-cancelling earbuds — no idea how we survived without them. A portable power station will be a savior during power outages, keeping the refrigerator running, phones charged up, and the WiFi router giving off a connection. A portable power station is also well worth packing along on upcoming camping trips. Think of movie nights under the stars thanks to a powered-up portable projector and with fresh popcorn.
The one snag here is that batteries aren’t cheap, and that’s especially true of high-tech and long-lasting batteries found in portable power stations. Because of this, shopping for a power station during major sales like the Amazon Big Spring Sale is a wise move. Here are some of our favorite models that are already seeing steep discounts before the sale officially begins.
Best Bluetti deal
$394.98
at Amazon
$799
Save $404.02
Why we like it
If you’re hoping to keep phones and small devices charged up during a power outage or while camping, the Bluetti Elite 100 V2 comes with 1,024Wh of battery power. Bluetti mentions this battery power will recharge a phone about 52 times or keep the WiFi router on for nearly 50 hours. Its compact size and weight of about 25 pounds makes it especially easy to pack along on the camping trip or carry around the house during a power outage.
The early Amazon Big Spring Sale price brings the Bluetti Elite 100 V2 down to $399, which is a 50% discount compared to its list price of $799.
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Best Anker Solix deal
$4,399
at Amazon
$7,397
Save $2,998
The massive Anker Solix F3800 is ideal for home backup should the power cut out. On its own, the Solix F3800 comes with 3,8400 Wh of battery capacity to keep your tech running without grid power, but Anker made this deal even better ahead of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale. The Solix F3800 comes bundled with BP3800 Expansion Battery and a 400W solar panel. The extra battery brings the total capacity up to 7,680Wh while the addition of a solar panels puts you in line for recharging off-grid.
More Anker Solix deals
Best Jackery deal
$429
at Amazon
$799
Save $370
Why we like it
If you’re looking for a portable power station to take along to the campground this summer, the Jackery Explorer 100 V2 is an ideal model. It’s a mix of portability, durability, solid port options, and it’s on sale for under $430. This Jackery model comes with 1,070Wh for recharging your phones while camping, keeping the speaker ready to go, and powering up the projector for movie nights. Plus, it weighs under 24 pounds, so you won’t have to struggle lugging it around camp.
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More portable power stations on sale at Amazon
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Outdoors
Amazon Big Spring Sale
Entertainment
Ads may be coming to Apple Maps as soon as this summer, report says
Apple Maps might get a fairly big change soon, and it’s one that few people will be excited about.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported this week that Apple will put advertisements in the Maps app on iPhone this summer, with an initial announcement as early as this month. Rather than bombarding users with annoying pop-up ads, it sounds like it’ll be more of a “sponsored search results” sort of thing, so you might see an ad for a specific restaurant or Uber Eats as part of a search query, even when that’s not exactly what you were looking for.
This idea also came up in a report last year, but it sounds like it’s actually happening soon. According to Gurman, the Apple Maps ads would operate similar to ads on Google Maps, with advertisers bidding on search terms like “coffee” or “thai food.”
Mashable Light Speed
Nobody likes it when a previously ad-free app gets ads, but in complete fairness to all involved, Google Maps has had sponsored search results for years, and that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the go-to navigation app. Users will put up with fairly non-intrusive ads as long as the app does its job, which has sometimes been a problem for Apple Maps over the years.
Despite all of that, though, the reception to the idea on social media has been pretty cold. Frosty, in fact.
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Perhaps people are just tired of constantly being advertised to in every part of their lives.
One reason iOS users might be angry? Apple is already reporting record sales in 2026, with Tim Cook calling the demand for iPhones “simply staggering.”
Topics
Apple
Apps & Software
Shark devices on sale ahead of Amazons Big Spring Sale: Stick vacuums, stain removers, hair tools
The best early Big Spring Sale deals at Amazon include record-low prices on portable power stations
