RoboCop 2 (1990)

The first thing anyone can say about this movie, and should say, is that it isn't RoboCop. But that should be said for all reviews for all movies always. Yet, this is still one of the best sequels ever put together to any movie anywhere at any time. Weller is outstanding again. How can stuffing a man into a foam latex suit and have him clip clop around in front of a camera work so well? Its mind blowing.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the first of these, but this a far cry from even that! "Robocop" (Peter Weller) is doing his best, but Detroit has become even more lawless with half the population addicted to a potent drug, and it now also faces a bankruptcy that will allow the all consuming OCP to take over the city from the enthusiastic, but out of his depth "Mayor Kuzak" (Willard Pugh). Just to make certain of success, the big boss, Dan O'Herlihy, develops a "Robocop 2" - this time using the dastardly criminal brain of arch criminal "Cain" - the man behind the drug - as the human template. Can the prototype take on and defeat his much more sophisticated rival and save the city? Perhaps Irvin Kershner wanted to take a pop at corporate greed, or megalomania, or bad government or maybe even the inane human nature of the empowered mob, but whatever his plan was, we end up with a sort of faintly comedic hybrid of "Terminator" (1984) by way of "Bugsy Malone" (1976) with some metallic action routines that could easily have been formulated better in clay by Ray Harryhausen. The story is all over the place, indeed Weller hardly features at all for much of it and by the time it does start to liven up I really wasn't sure if this was a spoof! The highly-pitched "Robocop" signature tune said it all - this is just, well, not very good!