RoboCop 2 Blu-Ray Review

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!"