RoboCop 2

RoboCop 2 (1990)

Runtime: 117 minutes

Directed by: Irvin Kershner

Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Belinda Bauer, Dan O'Herlihy, Tom Noonan

From: Orion

Two things have to be noted about this movie: it briefly features Alotta Fagina from the first Austin Powers movie, and it features the following (very) vulgar phrase from a young boy that was yelled to RoboCop, “Go fuck a refrigerator, peckerneck!” For the most part, though, I am not a big fan of this, something I hadn't watched in over 20 years. My Letterboxd review is below: 

This is yet another one of those movies that I saw in the past but the last viewing was at least 20 years ago. With this picture, I only saw it once as it was not something I liked at all; in fact, I remembered it as being an ugly movie and a really confused mess. I also remembered an extremely unique and vulgar insult which I won't repeat here (it's in the IMDb Quotes section for the film, anyhow) and somehow I had forgotten that it was actually a vulgar phrase, where a young boy told Robo to copulate with a household appliance, pretty much. It was so gonzo I had to laugh.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I discovered Frank Miller was a writer of this. In hindsight it did explain how the movie turned out, even if I hear that his original story was definitely different from what ended up on the screen. I've never been a comics reader so what he did there doesn't mean anything to me. Just from what I've heard about him in real life and what he's done in the movie world, I am not a fan.

Anyhow, the plot revolves around such thing as The Old Man (Dan O'Herlihy) who runs OCP is suddenly pure evil, a drug called Nuke that is sold by Tom Noonan and a major pusher is an 11 year old boy, the cops are on strike and it's part of the plan for Detroit to go bankrupt so that OCP can run it (unfortunately, in real life a few years ago Detroit actually DID file for bankruptcy; that was due to corruption and sheer incompetence), and sad to say, RoboCop himself is made to look bad; I mean, the beginning of the film he's a stalker who follows his former wife! It somehow gets worse from there.

The biggest problem with the movie is its tone; it is SO ugly and mean-spirited. I mean, an opening scene has a shootout in a drug lab and an infant is present only so that a bad guy could threaten to kill it. The whole thing with the 11 year old kid is just unpleasant, something done only to be “shocking” and “edgy”. A Little League baseball team robs an electronics store, for crying out loud. With all that, the satire that is mostly ham-fisted, humor that usually doesn't work, and how the story is an absolute mess that was poorly put together, I did not enjoy watching most of this. It wasn't as confusing as I had remembered, but I still did not enjoy watching most of this.

Really, the only reasons why I am giving this 2 stars is that it still has some amusing moments and the stop-motion animation is pretty cool; the battle between RoboCop and the new RoboCop 2 (it being controlled by a lunatic... what could go wrong there?) is nice and all although the sequence is a little overlong. I know that this has its fans and there is plenty of bloody violence; however, this is too cruel and unpleasant (not to mention sloppy and messy) for my tastes.