Combining fewer strong elements and even more flaws, RoboCop 2 detaches its hero even further from his partial humanity while providing mediocre thrills, a story that runs too long, and including some downright laughable elements.
The original RoboCop was a criticism of the Reaganomics-driven, capitalist-leaning society of the 1980s. It portrayed the very worst depths that a capitalist society could fall to with an utter lack of regulation and common sense. It was sensationalist propaganda to a point, which makes the main theme of RoboCop 2 all the more amusing. This time around, the titular character is waging a war on drugs, something advocated by Ronald Reagan. This powerful new drug called Nuke is being created and distributed by a man named Cain, who has a messiah complex from too many hits of his own creation. He’s rich, powerful and very well armed.
Behind the scenes, the Omni Consumer Products corporation is still trying to realize their vision of destroying Detroit and building a new Utopian metropolis in its place. Their latest move is to try and push the city to defaulting on its debt, which would allow OCP to foreclose and effectively take full control of the city. It’s an interesting concept, but one that requires some serious suspension of disbelief to make work. To help further the conflict, OCP creates a police strike by canceling the police department’s pension program, another jab at capitalism and one of the few elements in the film that actually still resonates today.
With only RoboCop to walk the streets in the name of justice, OCP moves ahead with their RoboCop 2 program. Instead of using the brain of an officer with strong convictions and willingness to uphold the law, they seek to use the vilest brains imaginable, bent on destruction and power. The RoboCop 2 program is to be used to eradicate civilians still living in Detroit once OCP forces the city into default.
I don’t know if it was done intentionally as a part of the cultural criticism or not, but the inclusion of a foul-mouthed 10-year-old boy who helps sell and eventually lead the drug operation is both laughable and repugnant at the same time. I have a hard time imagining any society that falls apart to the point where an elementary school kid could run a multi-million dollar drug empire. For me, it killed any remaining chance of me taking this film seriously. Though after the first film, how could anyone take RoboCop 2 seriously? What’s worse is that we’re supposed to feel sorry for this little brat when he lies dying in RoboCop’s arms later on.
RoboCop 2 runs longer than its predecessor, which is a major problem because RoboCop 2 has nothing new to add to the series and world of RoboCop. It gives us a few new, hopelessly evil villains and a new plot by OCP to pursue their ends by any means necessary. The flaws in OCP’s plans are quite obvious but the evil rich men are somehow oblivious to it. How can they honestly expect to build a Utopian city and prevent poor districts from springing up and crime from finding a home in an already corrupt idea? These are the sort of things that proof-reading and rewrites help to work out, neither of which must have happened here.
The visual effects are lackluster, even by 1990 standards. When RoboCop inevitably faces off against the RoboCop 2 model, there’s a whole lot of blue screen work and some atrocious stop motion photography. It’s almost amenable because the RoboCop 2 unit wasn’t exactly something that a person could have dressed up in and made a good fight scene with, but they way they tried to make these scenes work didn’t attempt anything cutting edge or groundbreaking. They fell back on tried and true techniques that were already becoming dated.
The biggest affront in my mind came at the beginning of the film. RoboCop was still trying to come to terms with his human past. He was essentially stalking his former wife and family by driving past their house. When confronted by the police department and his former wife, RoboCop abandoned his quest for grasping his partial humanity outright. Some might argue that he was being noble and did it so his wife had closure, but it strips the character of all humanity and allows the film to differ from any weighty character development in favor of violence, explosions and vulgarity.
RoboCop 2 isn’t so bad that it’s not worth watching. It’s just an underwhelming action flick for anyone hoping for more than what was given in the original. Sure, the sarcastic commercials still break up the story line from time to time and RoboCop peddles cheesy lines just like before while dishing out his own brand of police brutality, but there’s little that makes RoboCop 2 feel like its own film. It’s little more than a continuation of all the worst parts of the original. For some, that will be enough, but not for me.
RATING: 2.25 out of 5
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