Die Hard 2

Director: Renny Harlin

Writers: Steven E. de Souza, Doug Richardson

Starring: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler

Released: 1990

As the latest Die Hard sequel is out in cinemas, I thought I'd watch the first sequel, to see how it holds up.

You know what it's like: it's Christmas, you're waiting for your wife's flight to arrive at the airport, but a bunch of terrorists show up to liberate an international dictator/drug lord, who is also in custody on a flight to the same airport.

Taking place on Christmas Eve, one year to the day after the first film, Die Hard 2 follows a similar formula; John McClane must save the day by beating the terrorists on his own, he doesn't get help from incompetent cops who don't believe him, his wife is in peril beacuse of the terrorists; etc.

Whereas setting the first film in one enclosed building added a sense of claustrophobia and suspense, setting this film in an airport doesn't really add anything. Furthermore, the continued stupidity of the police (as in the first film) gets very annoying very quickly. The ease with which the "terrorists" liberate the dictator is also pretty ridiculous; I don't think the American government would be quite so slack. A lot of the action in this film is also pretty dull; it's a lot less tactical than in the first film, here it's just a straightforward matter of McClane just going along killing anyone in his way.

On the plus side, the cast are pretty decent for an action film like this, and the film does get better as it goes along. There are also some rather bizarre scenes, which don't really fit the film, but are quite funny, in a "wtf" kind of way; an old woman on a plane telling McClane's wife about her electric stun gun (that she has somehow carried onto the plane), which she killed her pet dog with; there is also a scene near the beginning of the film featuring a naked William Sadler in a hotel room doing some strange exercises and poses.

Overall, this is an average film, and nowhere near as good as its predecessor, though by all accounts, the best of the bad bunch of sequels.

Rating: 2.5/5

Total Recall

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Jon Povill, Gary Goldman

Starring: Arnold Scwarzenegger, Michael Ironside, Sharon Stone

Released: 1990

Arnie plays Douglas Quaid, whose job seems to be hitting rocks with a pick-axe. Having recurring dreams about being on Mars with some "sleazy" woman or other, he decides to visit a company called Rekall, who implant memories in lieu of fantastical holidays. The procedure goes wrong however, and Quaid is soon being chased by co-workers, his wife (who's not really his wife), and various baddies, all under orders from the corrupt governor.

After discovering a message from himself, saying that he is an agent who worked for the governor, but wiped his memories for self-protection, Quaid decides to go to Mars in person to investigate what is going on, where he gets involved with "mutants" and revolutionaries.

This film is a lot of fun, if not completely ridiculous. Featuring a lot of Paul Verhoeven's trademarks, including OTT violence and satirical TV adverts, the film never lets up its non-stop action and plot "twists". The film looks good, though some of the special effects haven't aged too well, and because it's so fast-paced, it doesn't leave you too long to worry about some of the logical flaws in the story and characters' motivations.

Rating: 3.5/5

RoboCop 3

Director: Fred Dekker

Writers: Frank Miller, Fred Dekker

Starring: Robert John Burke, Nancy Allen, Rip Torn

Released: 1993

The third and final RoboCop film sees RoboCop (now played by Robert John Burke, replacing Peter Weller) join the resistance movement against the "Rehabs", an armed militaristic unit who are replacing the police force and trying to relocate residents of certain parts of Detroit.

This is a pretty lame film. As the producers wanted a lower certificate following the relative failure of the second film, most of the darker edges of the first two films have been removed, as have most of the satirical adverts and news clips. Instead, this is a straight up "the people and RoboCop are good" and "corporation are bad" film with little subtlety.

About the only interesting idea here is the notion that OCP has been taken over by a larger Japanese corporation. However, this isn't developed at all, save for the arrival of some Japanese ninja cyborgs, who do little in the film except chop a few things with their swords then get killed by RoboCop.

Also confusing are the reasons for giving RoboCop additional technological add-ons; he gets a screw-on gun and jetpack. The way RoboCop embraces these again goes aginst the idea of the first film that he gradually becomes more human over the course of the film; over the second and third films he seems to have regressed back to being a monotone robot.

The special effects are also not that great. The scenes where RoboCop flies in particular aren't very good.

Overall, this comes across as a rather cheap and pointless sequel. Not very good.

Rating: 1.5/5

RoboCop 2

Director: Irvin Kershner

Writers: Frank Miller, Walon Green

Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Tom Noonan

Released: 1990

Centred (at least initially) around a drug called "Nuke", and the "cult"(!) who produce it, RoboCop 2 sees corporation OCP moving towards taking over the whole of Detroit as the city defaults on payments to the corporation. They also introduce "RoboCop 2", a bigger, more powerful cyborg cop.

The flaws in this film are many: the film starts with RoboCop being given a restraining order to stay away from his ex-wife, hinting at a greater exploration of the existential dilemmas facing him. However, this is then not followed up at all in the rest of the film. RoboCop then seems to regress to how he was when first created, less human and more robotic, doubly confusing considering he had become much more "human" as the first film progressed.

Similarly, after RoboCop is all but destroyed and rebuilt, he is re-programmed into a more "caring" and less violent police officer. Again, this takes about five minutes of the film before RoboCop electrocutes himself and loses these new directives, making the section kind of pointless.

The pacing of the film is also very erratic; long periods are spent with the baddies as they develop their drug and business, leaving RoboCop's role mainly to be to turn up occasionally to kill/arrest people.

Also, the head of OCP, who was shown to be at least slightly caring in the first film (he ditched ED-209 after its "glitch"), is much nastier and greedier this time around; no reason is given for this and he seems like a completely different character.

OCP's new "RoboCop 2" is also quite strange. Although undeniably powerful, the idea that OCP would use the brain of the fim's main protaganist, cult leader Cain (Tom Noonan), within it is rather strange; it was obviously going to lead to disaster. How OCP didn't see it happening is a mystery. Furthermore, having a child replace Cain as cult leader is also kind of strange; the ease with which he bosses people around (and they follow his orders) is equally bizarre.

Ultimately, RoboCop 2 has several interesting ideas but doesn't really follow them through, or explore them enough. It's not terrible, but isn't as good or focused as it could have been. The satirical elements are still here, and still work fairly well, although they seem more random this time around (i.e. adverts for sun block). Overall, a missed opportunity.

Rating: 2.5/5

RoboCop

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner

Starring: Paul Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox

Released: 1987

After literally being shot to pieces by a criminal gang in Detroit while out on patrol, policeman "Murphy" is resurrected/reconstructed by corporation OCP (who run the police, and much of the city) as a cyborg, named RoboCop.

Things start well for RoboCop; he starts to clean up the streets; however, he starts to have dreams about his previous life (his memory was supposedly wiped when he became RoboCop). Things are compounded further when he comes across one of the gang who killed "Murphy". Investigating the gang, he finds that they work for the second-in-command of OCP, who opposed the construction of RoboCop in favour of his own ED-209 idea, scrapped because of glitches.

Set in a near future where crime is rampant and much of the world seems to be in a state of (readiness for) war, RoboCop is a film that can be enjoyed on many levels. It can be watched as a straight-up action film; you can see it as a satire of "Reaganomics" and 1980s capitalist greed; a religious allegory; an existentialist story of the nature of being human or alive; and even more.

In terms of action, RoboCop is brutal, especially in the director's cut. When people get shot, it is very graphic; blood and limbs splatter everywhere. Especially gruesome is a scene where a malfunctioning ED-209 fires hundreds of rounds into a boardroom executive, continuing to fire long after he's dead (this scene is even longer in the director's cut). Very graphic too is the scene in which Murphy is killed, getting his hand, then arm, blasted off, before getting shot countless times more.

The satire in the film is mainly aimed at Ronald Reagan, and his business and foreign policies. From the obvious of having corporation OCP running hospitals, police etc, there's also news inserts in the film regarding American military intervention and a story about a "star wars" satellite going haywire and firing lasers at Earth, killing innocent civilians. The way these stories are casually reported like they're almost humorous is also, I think, taking a shot at mass media and people's desensitisation towards violence and death, which also plays well against the very violent nature of the film itself. There's also funny TV adverts (and references in the film) about a new gas-guzzling car, described as "bigger is better".

There are lots of religious themes here; on the making of feature on the DVD, Verhoeven goes so far as to call RoboCop an "American Jesus". Aside from the obvious resurrection story, there's a section where RoboCop's own people turn on him; there's also imagery like Murphy getting shot with arms outstretched and RoboCop seemingly walking on water. I don't really remember Jesus going back for revenge with guns (but then I've never read the bible), but you get the point.

The existentialist element of the film is also something that is fairly well handled. As the film goes along, RoboCop remembers slightly more about his "human" life (although mainly just flashes); he laments that he has some feelings about his wife, for example, but can no longer remember who she was. This element of the film adds some emotional depth, and a kind of sadness, to RoboCop, heightened as he tries to find out about his past and inadvertantly meets people (such as his former partner and the people who killed him) who conjure up memories within him. By the end of the film, he has enough memories and self-awareness to call himself Murphy, though the question obviously remains about how "human" he really is, even then.

Overall, I would describe RoboCop as brilliant, brutal and funny. Despite its slightly silly premise (and low budget), it's one of the best films of the 1980s. This is a multi-layered action film which is a lot better and deeper than people give it credit for. A must see.

Rating: 4.5/5