Robocop 2

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	1990
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Irvin Kershner
Genre:	Supercop sequel
Starring:	Peter Weller, Belinda Bauer, Tom Noonan
Rating:	2/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100502/
Tagline:	He's back to protect the innocents.
Favourite line:	None

Well, this is a bit of a mess, I'm afraid.

The plot:
It's a year since the events of the first movie, and Detroit's police, under the control of OCP, are out on strike over pension troubles.
OCP, keen to build on the success of the Robocop project look to redevelop and introduce a new model into the market, Robocop 2.
Trouble is, all of the prototypes keep on malfunctioning.
One ultra-ambitious female scientist decides that what is needed inside the beast is the mind of a criminal, and what criminal could be better than Cain, ringleader of the notorious Nuke cult, a pseudo-religious criminal organisation that are flooding the streets of Detroit with Nuke, the most potent and addictive narcotic known to man.
Inevitably, with Cain rendered as machine, a showdown with the original Robocop can only be a matter of time.....

For a movie with Robocop in the title, the eponymous character gains very little screen time. Indeed, the character has already become something of a caricature, a fact not helped when he is reprogrammed by OCP and begins to exhibit very odd behaviour.
All of the protagonists are playing their roles with tongue very firmly in cheek, which would be fine if it were even vaguely funny but, unfortunately, it's not.
Gone is the biting satire and ultra-violence of the original, in their place knockabout comedy and elongated shoot-outs.
Lacking the class, invention and, possibly most importantly, the wonderful score of the parent movie, this flounders and flaps and ends up feeling utterly directionless. A very poor sequel indeed, made all the more disappointing by the fact that the man behind the camera brought the world The Empire Strikes Back.