Rated
R
Running
Time: 1 Hour & 56 Minutes
Cast:
Peter
Weller-Officer Alex J. Murphy/RoboCop
Nancy
Allen-Officer Anne Lewis
Tom
Noonan-Cain/RoboCop 2
Belinda
Bauer-Dr. Juliette Faxx
Gabriel
Damon-Hob
Galyn
Görg-Angie
Felton
Perry-OCP Vice President Donald Johnson
Daniel
O'Herlihy-OCP CEO/The Old Man
Jeff
McCarthy-Holzgang
Robert
DoQui-Sergeant Warren Reed
Willard
E. Pugh-Mayor Marvin Kuzak
Directed
by Irvin Kershner
 |
| Guess who's back! |
Note: Part of the "RoboCop Trilogy" Blu-Ray set.
Hollywood
loves making sequels. Just look at this past summer’s offerings as a perfect
example. After the critical and commercial success of the original “RoboCop,”
Orion Pictures immediately approached Paul Verhoeven to do a sequel but he
wasn’t ready to rush into it and preferred to wait for the right script.
Impatient, Orion went ahead without him and hired famed comic book writer Frank
Miller to do the script. Unfortunately, the producers and studio executives
deemed Miller’s original screenplay as ‘unfilmable’ and it suffered through
numerous rewrites. A less-than-stellar sequel, “RoboCop 2” delivers on some
great action scenes but it never comes together as a satisfying whole with its
patchy mess of a story.
Old
Detroit is in total chaos as mega-corporation OCP (Omni-Consumer Products)
forces a police strike by cutting off their pension plan and reducing salaries.
Their goal is to let the city default on its debt so they can foreclose on it,
allowing the company to take over the city’s government, demolish everything
and build their planned ‘utopia,’ Delta City. Their Security Concepts division
is also looking into developing a more advanced ‘RoboCop 2’ but each project
ends in disaster as all the volunteers commit suicide upon realizing what they
have become. An amoral and ambitious psychologist, Dr. Juliette Faxx (Belinda
Bauer) convinces OCP’s CEO (Daniel O'Herlihy) to let her take over the project,
promising to find a suitable candidate. Meanwhile, crime on the streets have
gotten worse as people become addicted to a new designer drug called ‘Nuke,’
distributed by the fanatical and insane Cain (Tom Noonan), who his assisted by
his girlfriend Angie (Galyn Görg) and a foul-mouth hoodlum named Hob (Gabriel
Damon). With most of the police force on the picket fence, RoboCop (Peter
Weller) and his partner, Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), do what they can to keep
order on the city streets. They eventually manage to rally all of the police
officers and attack Cain’s hideout. Cain himself is severely injured during the
gunfight but Angie and Hob manage to escape. Dr. Faxx sees Cain as the perfect
candidate and harvests his brain for RoboCop 2. RoboCop is forced to battle
this mechanical monstrosity when it goes on a drug-fueled rampage.
“RoboCop
2” retains the humorous commercials and ironically upbeat newscasts but
Verhoeven’s absence is plainly felt throughout the film. The gleeful satirical
edge just isn’t as sharp in this one. The story veers off into too many
directions that RoboCop himself goes missing for much of the second hour. The
first thirty minutes are promising as Murphy is still haunted by memories of
his old life but is forced by OCP’s lawyers to acknowledge that he is nothing
but a machine, despite his heart and mind thinking differently. Although Weller
has little dialogue, you can see the despair on his face. Unfortunately, this
subplot is dropped and is never explored again. Much of the running time is
taken up by OCP once again up to their no-good shenanigans. Wanting the city to
foreclose, they instigate a police strike to cause chaos on the streets,
allowing OCP to build Delta City on the ruins of Old Detroit and control
everything. They also want a 2.0 version of RoboCop but how Dr. Faxx sees Cain
as perfect for the project makes no sense at all. She reasons it’s because he’s
power-hungry and desires immortality but it’s really to have a giant cyborg-on-cyborg
battle for the finale. The film takes a noticeably goofy turn when a rebuilt
RoboCop is given hundreds of politically correct, non-offensive and non-violent
directives, to the point where he can’t even defend himself and sprouts
speeches about nutrition. Some of lines he utters are quite hysterical such as
‘Waste makes haste. For time is fleeting. A rolling stone is worth two in the
bush.’ It’s a not-so-subtle jab at parental rights groups but it clashes with
the ultra-violence on display. Although he is unable to refuse his new
commands, it seems RoboCop retains enough free will to erase everything with a
massive power surge. Hard to believe that OCP failed to implement some sort
of safeguard like in the first film. The biggest issue I have is with the child
character Hob, who curses and has no qualms about murdering police officers but
he’s squeamish when it comes to watching Cain torturing people. Later, RoboCop
takes pity on a dying Hob and the film has the gall to try and make us sympathize
with him. I don’t care if he was a kid but I sure was glad Hob got his
comeuppance. There’s just too much going on in “RoboCop 2” and none of the
subplots are sufficiently explored, with some being dropped altogether. The
only saving grace is the action and watching RoboCop taking down thugs without
breaking a sweat always brings a smile to my face. Once he goes up against
RoboCop 2, all the problems of the film fade away in a no-holds-barred battle.
The stop-motion effects are quite impressive for its time, even if the movement
is clunky and awkward. Unfortunately, it ends as quickly as it began but what
an amazing 12 minutes of blood and explosions!
Due
to the poorly constructed script, none of the cast proves memorable. Peter
Weller’s best scenes occur in the first thirty minutes and for the rest of time
all he does is kill bad guys. Although Murphy had regained his personality at
the end of the first film, this is undone in the sequel. This would be the last
time Weller would play RoboCop as he found it exhausting wearing the suit and
filming the sequel was a disappointing experience for him due to several
deleted scenes that would’ve fleshed out his character. Nancy Allen has little
to do as well as Anne Lewis and she’s mostly along for the ride. Tom Noonan
makes for a very poor villain as Cain. He’s missing that despicable quality
that made Boddicker so memorable and resembles a Charles Manson reject.
Surprisingly, Belinda Bauer is effective as Dr. Juliette Faxx, who uses every
underhanded tactic to get ahead, which includes sleeping with the boss.
“RoboCop
2” on Blu-Ray is a massive improvement over the original in picture and audio
quality. Although certain scenes appear fuzzy, textures are detailed and
certain close-ups, especially on Murphy, look astounding. As much of the film
is filled with explosions and gunfire, audio is louder, more dynamic and
immersive, especially during the brawl between RoboCop and RoboCop 2.
Occasionally, dialogue can sound murky but it’s rare. You’ll notice that Basil Poledouris
iconic theme is missing as the score is done by Leonard Rosenman. The end
credits music had a cheesy choir chanting ‘RoboCop! RoboCop!’ Again, there are
no special features besides the two theatrical trailers.
Released
on June 22, 1990, “RoboCop 2” received mixed to negative reviews with a current
score of 35% on Rotten Tomatoes. The sequel was a moderate box office success
with a domestic gross of $46 million against an estimated $14 million
production budget. Despite its numerous flaws, “RoboCop 2” has its charms and
the action is entertaining but Irvin Kershner (director of “The Empire Strikes
Back”) never succeeds in capturing what made the original so unique. I guess
the best praise I can muster is that when compared to 1993’s “RoboCop 3,” this
one is like “Citizen Kane.”
Final
Rating: 3 out of 5
"Patience,
Lewis. We're only human!"
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