RoboCop 2 |
  • USA • 1990 • 117m •   • Directed by: Irvin Kershner. • Starring: John Glover, Mario Machado, Leeza Gibbons, John Ingle, Tom Noonan, Roger Aaron Brown, Mark Rolston, Lila Finn, John Hateley, Gage Tarrant, Thomas Rosales Jr., Brandon Smith, Wallace Merck. • Music by: Leonard Rosenman.      After a successful deployment of the Robocop Law Enforcement unit, OCP sees its goal of urban pacification come closer and closer, but as this develops, a new narcotic known as "Nuke" invades the streets led by God-delirious leader Cane. As this menace grows, it may prove to be too much for Murphy to handle. OCP tries to replicate the success of the first unit, but ends up with failed prototypes with suicidal issues... until Dr. Faxx, a scientist straying away from OCP's path, uses Cane as the new subject for the Robocop 2 project, a living God.
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"RoboCop 2" is a bit different. Gone is Paul Verhoeven at the helm of the film and filling in for his absence is Irvin Kershner ("The Empire Strikes Back"). The film is violent, perhaps a bit more so than the first in certain areas overall, but it lacks the hard, almost unexplainable solid edge the first film had--the sharpness that pierces you as you watch the film like a knife blade. "RoboCop 2" has a dull blade. The first has a great effect. This does not. There's violence without reason, reason without explanation, and explanation without effect.
Detroit is worse off than it was in the last film--men bash little old ladies with cars and steal their loot; hookers stab men in the eye to steal cash; stores are blown up and rampages by little league players and the captain of the team even occur. Police are on strike because they claim the city is screwing them over--only RoboCop (Peter Weller), Lewis (Nancy Allen), and a few other policemenwomen remain.
There's a new drug on the rise called "Nuke," manufactured and sold to the public by Cain (Tom Noonan) and his young apprentice (Gabriel Damon), who looks about 11 or 12 but talks with the language of a Quentin Tarantino character and kills innocent human beings mercilessly. Oh, but when he dies we're supposed to feel sorry for him because then he's a cute little mortally-wounded boy.
RoboCop chases down Cain and, after what seems two hours into the film, finally catches him. But Omni Corp, the corporation we saw in the first film, wants a new RoboCop, so they shut down life support on the dying Cain, take his brain and stuff it into a new RoboCop, referenced to so originally as "RoboCop 2," hence the title of the film. (My suggestion is that in "RoboCop 4," they should create a cyborg called RoboCop XP, and he can have lightning-fast reflexes and a built-in wireless broadband modem so he can check his e-mails and surf the 'Net while he's on the go.)
And putting a homicidal drug dealer's brain inside a giant-sized robot law enforcer with machine gun capabilities and weapons of mass destruction probably isn't a very good idea, but the thought never crosses the minds of Omni Corp. The chairman of Omni Corp (Daniel O'Herlihy) produces RoboCop 2 to the public, but RoboCop already realizes RoboCop 2 is dangerous and so he appears at the unveiling armed with a huge gun.
RoboCop 2 goes haywire and kills everyone. The entire sequence is done in cheesy Godzilla animation but, to be quite honest, it didn't look all that bad. He and RoboCop duke it out on top of buildings and in elevator shafts and on the ground outside Omni Corp, where an uncountable number of police officers (hey, weren't they on strike?) are left firing at this indestructible--and very bulletproof--machine that unfortunately does not have an OFF switch in sight. ("Turn it off!" he says. "I can't!" she says. "You idiots!" I say.)
So many loose threads are left dangling in "RoboCop 2," and so many subject matters that I wanted sorting out after seeing the first film. But there isn't any hope in sight. After a brief moment that hints towards the central idea that RoboCop may still be human after all (wasn't that sorta established in the original?), everything is dropped for the action set pieces to move in, such as a car chase with RoboCop and Cain, or the end finale that goes on too long. But RoboCop is seen spying on his wife in the beginning, and we find out that she has gone through serious trauma over this whole thing. She confronts him at the police station and out of decency he insists her husband is dead. But we see the look of remembrance and remorse in his eyes.
That's the storyline I would like to follow. I'd like to follow RoboCop's journey to find himself again, to recover lost memories floating around in that big brain of his. To confront his wife and tell her that he remembers her, to add a human element to the story that was so clearly demonstrated in the original but completely lost here. Kershner obviously wants to mimic Verhoeven. But Verhoeven knows how to equally balance action and excessive gore with social satire and the ongoing human battles, relevant to the action battles. Remember in the first film when RoboCop went through his house and his eyes started to flood with past images and faded memories? Nothing like that is done here. We simply get some cheesy flashback in the beginning when Alex (pre-RoboCop) is laughing with his wife in a very non-candid and dubious sort of way. As I saw this sequence, I just sat in my seat waiting for the word "Hallmark" to appear in gold font across the screen.
As for all the loose threads left open in this film and supposedly not touched in the third movie...let's all hope that when Paul Verhoeven said he wishes to return to the series he wasn't lying. I'd love to see this franchise closed in a more honorable fashion. "RoboCop 2" is an OK movie for a Friday night crowd, but in comparison with the original, it's about as cold as RoboCop's facial tissue and as cloudy as RoboCop's memory.
Review by MovieAddict2016 from the Internet Movie Database.
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