In case you don't know the plot of Robocop 2 is that a new drug called "Nuke" has been invented and it is apparently the deadliest and most addictive of all drugs. While this is happening O.C.P is trying to make a Robocop 2.0. And while that is happening Robocop is injured and a psychiatrist who the chairman of the company has an eye for alters his personality. AND WHILE THIS is going on Detroit is running out of money and O.C.P is about to take over the rest of it. And this leads to my first issue with this film. The story is bloated and unwieldy. There are too many plots and too many characters which causes the plots and characters to not get a lot of development. Sadly some of these plots would be great if they had gotten that further development and other plots had been removed.
Wanna get Nuked?
For some reason they decided to remove Murphy's character development from the first movie and made him speak and act like he did when he was originally changed into Robocop. That made the plot about his personality being altered mean a lot less. It would have been heart wrenching to see them strip his humanity away, but because they dehumanized the character at the beginning it doesn't mean much. Though what they change his personality to and the meeting they had about what to change it to is so wonderfully satirical that it was still enjoyable. Though it doesn't last long and doesn't really go anywhere.
The woman who changed Robocop's personality is named Dr. Juliette Faxx and she is wonderfully played by Belinda Bauer. The character is a cold and vindictive woman who will do anything to get what she wants. Robocop is still played by Peter Weller who gives disappointing performance as Robocop. His performance in the first film was nuanced, but he is just generic here. The creator of "Nuke" is played by Tom Noonan who pulls off the sociopath with a god complex named Cain pretty well. A young boy named Hob who is played by Gabriel Damon does a lot of the grunt work for Cain. Hob is honestly kind of annoying and screws with the tone of the film. The film would have been better without him. And Anne returns in an extremely marginalized roll. There are MANY other characters, but most of them don't have a point and/or are played blandly and don't get a lot of development because of how many plots and other characters there are.
Well that's useful
The tone of this film is all over the place which is common for a movie as bloated as this one. While trying to stop a cop killing drug dealer with a god complex who has managed to get a decent amount of followers he stumbles across a Little League Team robbing a GUN store. The scene is quite frankly really funny, but it messes with the films over all tone. In Robocop the silly stuff is satire of things going on in the real world. This was just a pointless scene which was weird and silly just for the sake of being weird and silly which bothers me and there are quite a few tonally confused scenes like that throughout the film. Thankfully though the real satire in this film is still brilliant and hilarious which helps when you are trudging through the mostly sub par first half and the mostly mediocre second half of the various plots.
The action is still really good though they use less a bit less brutal action and a bit more over the top action which I didn't mind too much, but a few scenes would have had a little bit more weight to them if they had hit the balance the first film hit. The final battle of the film is what I consider the pinnacle of stop motion and the actual action of it is impressive. The other effects, except for one, still hold up pretty well today just like the first film's effects. The one effect that doesn't hold up is this.....thing...
DON'T LOOK AT IT OR YOU'LL BE TURNED TO STONE!
In the end Robocop 2 is still a fairly entertaining action flick with some really funny satire and good special effects, but it is bloated, it lacks the heart of the original, and some of the plots don't make a whole lot of sense if you think too hard about them.
As an added bonus here is the song I listened to while writing this.
NEXT REVIEW: ROBOCOP 3
LATER: SUNSHINE
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