Your IP has been blocked. Please perform the action below to regain access.
75.126.130.58-
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
-
Buy another Verhoeven film instead.
My advice to anyone who, having seen Robocop, is looking for a decent follow-up - look for something else by Verhoeven. Total Recall, perhaps, which stars the bloke who played Dick Jones in a similar role and is similarly interesting, OTT and makes you think. Why shouldn't you bother with R2? Well, let's see...
On paper there should be no reason to slate this film. Decent director? Check. Commentary on society? Check. Continuation of the themes from the first movie, same kinda tone? Check. It was based on a Frank Miller screenplay, for heaven's sake, and most of the cast from original returned. Should've been enough to liberate R2 from bad-sequel-syndrome...
The first act of the film sounds promising. Murphy/Robocop's confusion over his humanity and his place with his family (established at the end of R1) is continued, and in an emotionally effective way. Detroit has sunk into drug addiction, the police force is on strike due to poor treatment at the hands of OCP (both hinted at in the first film); the theme of societal collapse and corporate responsibility are effectively played out. Representative scenes include the brutal mugging of an addict in the first few second of the movie, a drug-peddling 12-year old and his spaced-out drug-lord boss. Who, it quickly turns out, is far more sadistic than Boddicker and co from R1; Cain, R2's villain, and Hobb, his young apprentice, represent the film's narrative progression and social commentary better than anything. The first film had a bunch of gun-toting criminals who camped out in a derelict steel mill; these guys have their own drug lab, they've got cops on the take, and (concluding act 1) they get to Murphy in an almost terminal way.
Sounds pretty promising, right? Well, it's not. The problem with the first act is the way it's presented. Everyone comments on how violent this film is; it's violent, yeah, but then so are Commando and Friday 13th. So are Saw and Hostel. The difference is that director Kershner seems to take a perverse and sadistic pleasure in the suffering of the characters - it's not enough, for example, that Robocop gets graphically cut to pieces by industrial tools; we then have to endure several close-ups and drawn-out scenes of his dismembered torso stammering and shaking like it's undergoing a seizure.
The sadism culminates in an all-too-long scene where the drug lord and his gang strap a cop to a medical table, verbally scare him for a few minutes then watch while he's cut open with a scalpel. Kershner, however, doesn't stop there. We get an overhead view of the operating table! We get to hear the guy screaming in agony! For a long time! Wow! Unbelievably, this scene as it appears on DVD, is actually the toned down version; there's an extended version with more screaming and more sadism. I defy anyone who isn't some form of pituary retard to watch this scene and not feel at least mildly disgusted.
Urotsukidoji (a Jap anime) had a scene that was so dodgy the British censors trimmed it with the words "If this had been live action, we would've handed the footage to the police." Similarly, I cannot believe no-one's questioned Kershner's mental state after R2.
OK, so today something like Hostel can get released and a dozen single guys will watch it in their psychosis-breeding bedrooms and worship it. The same guys are probably reading this now and getting unnaturally excited about R2 (if they haven't already gone to check out Urotsukidoji - "Why would we if it's cut?!") Hostel, however, is packaged as the kind of exploitive snuff trash that it is, and only someone's who's insanely bored would watch it. R2 is a continuation of a decent film; it has plots, characters and themes to deal with and it doesn't. The first film worked because the violence was (a) necessary to the plot, and (b) either self-consciously OTT or making a point. R2 is just sadistically violent. Maybe it's just me, but I can't see why anyone would like watching this stuff.
After this, the film degenerates into fantasy. There's some clap-trap involving a bigger robot. There's a big "exciting" chase scene which features Robo riding a Harley (derelict, dystopian Detroit...a Harley...sure...) in a game of chicken. Chicken?! But wait, it gets worse...there's Robocop's reprogramming - a pathetic and misguided attempt at comedy that's totally out of place. The ending is atrociously bad and all the themes set up in first act are completely abandoned.
You could just about make the case that, in it's (albeit twisted) presentation of extreme urban and moral decay, Robocop 2 is a good commentary on our times; there are certainly plenty of equally sadistic crimes that're becoming more commonplace nowadays.
But there're other films with similar commentaries that are at least compelling, convincing and don't collapse into absurdity after 45 minutes. And why would you want to watch a load of graphic torture, violent 12 yr olds and muggings anyway? Watch the news instead.
So overall I'd give this film 1 star for almost developing the first film, and for not being Robocop 3. Please, spare your wallet and your good memories of the first film, and avoid. Unless, of course, you're a buck-toothed moron who's bored of Hostel, wants something worse, and thinks Urotsukidoji sounds too tame.
Rating: 
-
Robocop fan
Not usual to see a sequel live up to the first but this one does the trick.
Rating: 
-
RoboCop, RoboCop, RoboCop and More RoboCop
Supposedly RoboCop Prime Directives was originally a TV miniseries released in 2001. I'm not sure where it aired, but each episode is feature film length and the violence/language varies from PG to R rated material.
The series includes Dark Justice, Meltdown, Resurrection, and Crash and Burn...and the movies should be watched in that order for them to make sense.
Page Fletcher (from HBO's The Hitchhiker) stars as RoboCop. He does about as good a job as Robert John Burke did in RoboCop 3. In fact, the whole Prime Directives series is on par with RoboCop 3...and that's not a compliment. It's not really a knock either. It's a declaration that Prime Directives is an average sequel-set to what were two great initial RoboCop films (RoboCop and RoboCop 2).
Prime Directives takes place ten years after the first RoboCop. Alex Murphy/RoboCop is no longer needed in Delta City and is now considered a nuisance by OCP. John Cable, Alex Murphy's former partner, is killed and brought back as a new RoboCop and is instructed to destroy Murphy/RoboCop.
OCP is now in the hands of corrupt executives (one is a malevolent new CEO, one is Cable/RoboCop's ex-wife and one is Murphy/RoboCop's own son) and they have a new technology called SAINT that they will use to run the city and market to consumers "to make all of your decisions for you". But there is a terrorist that wants to infect SAINT with a computer virus that could take down all computers on the net and release a deadly nanotechlogy into humans.
All 4 episodes run apx 90 minutes each, so we're talking about 6 hours of 3-star RoboCop. So if you've got a rainy day and a craving for RoboCop, this series is for you.
As of this writing, the series is available as a set only from Amazon resellers, and the set is about 1/2 the price of buying all 4 separately. But Prime Directives is far from collector caliber, so I'd recommend just finding these to rent, and keep the viewing order that I mentioned earlier in mind.
Rating: 
-
"Thank you for not smoking!"
Robocop returns to serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law, in the 1990 sequel to the 1987 classic original.
Peter Weller revives his role as the futuristic Detroit cop turned cyborg, as does Nancy Allen (Blow Out) as Ann Lewis, and Dan O'Herlihy as OCP's president. Onboard this time around is director Irvin Kershner (Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back) replacing Paul Verhoeven.
Robocop is now battling a drug kingpin named Cain, played by Tom Noonan (Last Action Hero), who also leads the Nuke cult, a popular drug in the crime-ridden streets of Detroit. In the meantime, OCP is attempting to build a new cyborg to fight crime; the Old Man assigns a sexy young psychiatrist to overlook the project, who eventually recruits Cain as a new powerful cyborg, and turns a heavily damaged and destroyed Robocop into a wuss!
The movie retrieves the quirkiness of the original, with all the fictional TV ads, headline news, and shows, along with the gruesome violence and all-out chaos. However, the violence is tuned down from the original. The movie's highlight moments is watching Robocop commenting on the moon looking wonderful, lecturing young thugs on morals, and pulling his gun on a man smoking in a crowded area.
Robocop 2 is definitely not as good as Robocop, but, compared to the horrible Robocop 3 (in which Peter Weller does not star), is a worthwhile sequel.
Recommended
B-
Rating: -
"More human than human."
Robocop 2, the inevitable sequal to the first blockbuster Robcop film.Not nearlly as good as the first one,but entertaining to say the least. This film takes a more comic bookish means of showing the film so it is a little campy,but all intentional.At times, Robocop 2 is pointlessly violent,but I wouldn't categorize it as greusome unless you have a really weak stomach and nature.My only complaint is there is too much swearing in this film,but it is rated for it.It is just tiresome to here a 12yr. old kid with a gutter mouth nonstop throughout the film.I wanted him to shut up,or be shot/die sooner.The special effects are top notch for its day,remember this was made before all FX houses scrambled to become CGI artists to stay in business.I actually prefer more of the old school way FX facilities durring the times accomplished visual effects,and more often than not,look better than some of the overdone films of now that rely completely on CGI to tell a story which inevitably ruins the film most times.Nothing like being bored to death by a film that is just a special effects extraviganza. Depiste Robocop 2 not meeting the expectations,it is still a great/entertaining film.Murphy is still struggling with past,fragmented memories of who he used to be,but driven to fight crime and be the ultimate police officer despite the odds of pollitical manipulation and his own turning on him.This was a great film,the only regret is that this DVD offers no featurettes which would have been a nice touch.Well worth owning for the price and adding to your collection if you are a Sci-Fi fan.
