Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop isn’t just spectacularly effective science fiction action classic. It is also a biting social and political satire on modern America which, as times went on, received disturbingly prophetic dimension. Same thing, to a degree, can be said of its sequel RoboCop 2, 1990 film directed by Irvin Kershner.
The plot begins again in futuristic Detroit, roughly a year since the events of the first film. Protagonist Alex Murphy (played by Peter Weller) is still doing its job as cyborg policeman and fights rampant crime, this time fuelled by synthetic drug called “Nuke”, produced and distributed by vicious gang led by charismatic guru-like leader Cain (played by Tom Noonan). All this happens while Omni Consumer Products, corporation that control city’s police, tries to make the Detroit bankrupt in order to make the profits on real estate and other estates after the hostile takeover. Corporation head Old Man (played by Dan O’Herlihy) plans to replace human police force with new, modern cyborgs, but the combining deceased policemen like Murphy with robotic parts failed to produced desired results. Psychologist Dr. Faxx (played by Belinda Bauer) has an idea to use violent power-obsessed criminals instead, and Cain happens to be best possible candidate.
Sequels are almost inevitably inferior to original films. Producers were quite aware of it in case of RoboCop, so they gave director’s chair to Irvin Kershner, veteran who had reputation of rare ability to turn sequels into even better films (like in The Empire Strikes Back). Kershner failed to achieve similar result here, although he should be credited for doing decent job. Action scenes are well-staged, tempo is fast but comprehensive for the audience and special effects are slightly better than original, especially combination of mechanic tricks and old school stop motion animation, which is best scene in spectacular final showdown between RoboCop and its cyborg adversary. Technical quality, however, isn’t enough to compensate for huge flaws with the script who was, somewhat surprisingly, written by Frank Miller, celebrated comics book author who would later have fruitful relationship with Hollywood. Production apparently started with script not being finished and, as a result, it seems sloppy and, unlike perfect original, looks terribly unfocused with some details that should have been left on the cutting room floor, like the segment dealing with Murphy/RoboCop and his former wife. At times it looks like Miller was trying to stuff too much content in the film and many of such decisions were wrong, usually at the expense of the dark satirical route Miller had apparently tried to take. One such decision was introduction of the character of Hob (played by Gabriel Damon), Cain’s 12-year old henchman who, despite early age, mimics ruthlessness of his boss and even tries temporarily to take over his criminal empire. Unpleasant and possibly disturbing concept of pre-teen sociopathic criminal that revolted some of the more sensitive critics like Roger Ebert, is clumsily toned down in same character receiving tragic death which will be witnessed by strangely empathic RoboCop.
Other parts of Miller’s script are satisfying and the most interesting is his further exploration of dystopian world of RoboCop and speculations how would it evolve. That segment is what makes RoboCop prophetic and strangely entertaining from today’s perspective. In many ways, Detroit is presented just like many of US big cities today, plagued with poverty, crime as well as incompetent and corrupt city administration embodied by semi-comical character of Mayor Marvin Kuzak (played by Willard E. Pugh); those cities and people who live in them don’t stand a chance against big, powerful and rich corporations. Miller’s script also shows that the ranks of corporations are filled not only by psychopaths, but also by hypocrites and characters that would be today be called “woke”. This leads to interesting and semi-humorous segment in which RoboCop is programmed to be gentler, kinder, civic-minded and environmentally-friendly, which leads to predictably funny results on the mean streets of decaying city. This segment, however, while bringing interesting detail, seems out of place in the rest of the overblown film.
Cast is also much inferior to the first film, despite some, like Weller and Nancy Allen in the role of RoboCop’s loyal partner Anne Lewis, repeating their roles. Tom Noonan is interesting in the role of apparent former hippie who became Manson-like crime guru, but he lacks power of Kurtwood Smith as the crime boss of the original. Same can be said for Belinda Bauer who, while apparently having a ball as combination of femme fatale and mad scientist, lacks rawness of rival corporate officials played by Ronny Cox and Miguel Ferrer in the first film. Weller, whose character actually doesn’t display much emotions in the film, later even criticised the film. Film is even more disappointing due to musical score by Leonard Rosenman, which was poor substitution to brilliant work of Basil Poledouris in RoboCop. While entertaining, RoboCop 2 is predictably inferior to Verheoeven’s masterpiece and that reflected in underwhelming box office results. A new sequel titled RoboCop 3, was made without Weller few years later and its fiasco among viewers and critics didn’t surprise anyone.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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