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
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