Robocop 2

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Reviews

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With the surprise success—both critical and commercial—of Robocop, it was inevitable that a sequel would emerge (actually, two sequels). But this follow-up lacked the dyspeptically funny vision of filmmaker Paul Verhoeven and wound up skimming the surface to repeat only the most superficial elements of the original: the big, clunky hero (played by Peter Weller), the ultra-violence (minus a dark sense of humor), and the plethora of action sequences. What plot there is deals with the corporation that runs the cops and its two-pronged attempt to squeeze every dime out of the populace and the city: create a new drug crisis (with an incredibly addictive synthetic drug the corporation manufactures, spread by a charismatic drug lord) and then attack with a bigger robot, one that eliminates Robocop at the same time. Would that they had. —Marshall Fine

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RoboCop 2 isn’t just the title of the first sequel to RoboCop but refers, in a plot prefiguring Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), to a second, more powerful cyborg introduced as an adversary to the tin-can man played to perfection by Peter Weller. Generally dismissed by most fans, here director Irvin Kershner does much the same job as he did with the first Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), which is to make a darker and in some ways more involving follow-up.

Nancy Allen returns from the original as RoboCop’s policewoman sidekick and Kershner sticks to the jet-black satire and ruthless comic-book morality of the original, making this a rarity for Hollywood: a multi-million-dollar franchise movie anti-capitalist assault on the “greed is good” mentality of the Regan era. There’s even a hilariously prescient dig at the way the studio would eventually dumb the series down into family-friendly fodder, a process that began with the immediate sequel, RoboCop 3 (1993). Action is to the fore and among the spectacular set-pieces and furious carnage RoboCop 2 offers a last stand before digital effects took over for some excellent stop-motion animation for RoboCop’s psychotic new foe. —Gary S Dalkin