RoboCop 2

This article is about the film. For the video game, see RoboCop 2 (video game).
RoboCop 2

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Irvin Kershner
Produced by Jon Davison
Screenplay by Frank Miller
Walon Green
Story by Frank Miller
Based on Characters by
Edward Neumeier
Michael Miner
Starring
Music by Leonard Rosenman
Cinematography Mark Irwin
Edited by Armen Minasian
Lee Smith
Deborah Zeitman
Distributed by Orion Pictures
Release dates
  • June 22, 1990 (1990-06-22)
Running time
 116 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $35 million
Box office $45.7 million[1][2]

RoboCop 2 is a 1990 American cyberpunk action film directed by Irvin Kershner and starring Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O'Herlihy, Belinda Bauer, Tom Noonan, and Gabriel Damon. Set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, it is the sequel to the 1987 film RoboCop.[3]

The film received mixed reviews from critics.[4] In 2013, the film received attention from news media due to its plot predicting Detroit filing for bankruptcy in the future.[5]

It was the final film directed by Irvin Kershner.

Plot

After the success of the RoboCop program, Omni Consumer Products (OCP) has a new scheme to have Detroit completely under their control. They plan to have the city default on its debt, then foreclose on the entire city, taking over its government. They will then replace the old neighborhoods with Delta City, a new planned city center independent of the United States government.

To rally public opinion behind urban redevelopment and Delta City construction, OCP sparks an increase in street crime. As Detroit Police Department is owned by OCP, they terminate police pension plans and cut salaries, triggering a police strike. RoboCop, due to his directives, is unable to strike and remains on duty with his partner, Anne Lewis. The two raid a manufacturing plant of Nuke, a new designer drug that has been plaguing the streets of Detroit. RoboCop kills all the criminals, except for a young criminal named Hob, who shoots him and escapes.

Meanwhile, OCP struggles to develop "RoboCop 2", which is expected to be mass-produced and completely replace police officers. To their frustration, all the newly resurrected officers immediately commit suicide. Dr. Juliette Faxx, an unscrupulous psychologist, concludes that Alex Murphy's strong sense of duty and his moral objection to suicide were the reasons behind his ability to adapt to his resurrection as RoboCop. Faxx convinces the Old Man to let her control the project, this time using a criminal with a desire for power and immortality. Despite other executives' objection, Faxx is allowed to proceed.

Nuke's distributor, the power-hungry Cain, feels threatened by the Delta City plan. He fears that he will lose his market if the city is redeveloped into a capitalistic utopia. He is assisted by his girlfriend Angie, his apprentice Hob, and Duffy, a corrupt police officer and Nuke addict. RoboCop tracks down Duffy and beats Cain's location out of him. He confronts Cain's gang at an abandoned construction site, but is overwhelmed. The criminals cut apart his body and dump the pieces in front of his precinct. Cain has Duffy tortured to death for revealing their location, and forces Hob to watch.

RoboCop is repaired, but Faxx reprograms him with over 300 new directives, severely impeding his ability to perform his duties. One of his original technicians suggests that a massive electrical charge might reboot his system. RoboCop shocks himself with a high voltage transformer. The charge erases all of his directives, including the original ones, allowing him to be in complete control. Murphy motivates the officers to aid him in raiding Cain's hideout. As Cain tries to escape, RoboCop intercepts and heavily wounds him. Hob escapes and takes control of Cain's drug empire. Believing she can control him with Nuke, Faxx selects Cain for the RoboCop 2 project, and puts his brain in a towering and heavily armed body.

Hob arranges a meeting with the Detroit mayor, saying that the mayor needs to institute a "hands off" policy towards Nuke. In exchange, Hob presents the mayor with a truckload of cash and gold in order to retire the city's debt to OCP, which would nullify the Delta City project. Threatened by this move, OCP sends RoboCop 2/Cain to the meeting to kill Hob. Cain slaughters everyone in sight, except for the mayor who manages to escape. He kills Angie and fatally wounds Hob. As RoboCop arrives, Hob identifies the attacker and dies.

During the unveiling ceremony for Delta City and RoboCop 2, the Old Man presents a canister of Nuke as a symbol of the current crime wave. Seeing Nuke, Cain goes berserk and attacks the crowd. RoboCop arrives and fights Cain. The two battle throughout the building, and the fight eventually extends to the street. The police force arrives and engages Cain, who opens fire at officers and civilians alike. RoboCop recovers the Nuke canister and has Lewis give it to Cain, who stops fighting to administer the drug to himself. As Cain feels the drug's effect, RoboCop leaps onto his back, shoots through his armor and rips out his brain. He crushes the brain, ending Cain's rampage.

The Old Man decides to scapegoat Faxx to escape blame, and leaves. As Lewis complains that OCP is escaping accountability again, RoboCop insists they must be patient because "We're only human."

Cast

Production

Screenwriter Frank Miller (right) plays the illegal drug chemist "Frank" working for Tom Noonan's "Cain" (left) while Gabriel Damon's "Hob" appears in the background (center).

After the success of RoboCop (1987), director Paul Verhoeven and the original screenwriters Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner were immediately approached for a sequel by the studio. According to Verhoeven, he didn't want to make the kind of sequel that the studio had in mind. He felt going forward so quickly with their ideas would make it feel like he was attempting to cash in on the first film, and he only wanted to do a follow-up if it was original and innovative. Neumeier and Miner had already presented a very rough outline called RoboCop: Corporate Wars. In this draft, RoboCop was to be shot and pulverized to metallic dust by a cannon in the very beginning. He would be resurrected 25 years later in an even more dystopian future, where he becomes a pawn in the struggle between an all-powerful corporation, the government and an impoverished population. The studio liked this idea, but the writers did not want to continue working on script due to personal interests associated with the writers strike. Verhoeven also did not support the project, having gone to shoot Total Recall for big money, while agreeing to all conditions of the producers and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who gave the director only three hours for making decision from the beginning of reading the script.

Eventually, the film was shot on a new script by Frank Miller & Walon Green, but the plot also has lines from the original script and early drafts for the first movie that were never filmed - the salvation of the city from looters during the police strike, showing deserted areas in Old Detroit, as well as the line in which Murphy gets rid of the three prime directives - thus showing that for the fight against crime he doesn't need it, because instead he has a duty to serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law.

Filming

RoboCop 2 was chiefly filmed in Houston in 1989.[6][7] In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Kershner mentioned that Houston was an ideal location due to the relative calmness of Downtown Houston at night. He also claimed that they were shooting in winter, and snow and rain would be an inappropriate climate for film production.

Jefferson Davis Hospital was used as the location for the Nuke manufacturing plant.[8] The finale of the film was shot in the Houston Theater District near Wortham Theater Center and Alley Theatre.[9] Cullen Center was depicted as the headquarters of Omni Consumer Products, while Houston City Hall was shown in a scene in which Mayor Kuzak speaks to the press. The George R. Brown Convention Center and the Bank of America Center were also included in the film. Additional footage was filmed at the decommissioned Hiram Clarke Power Plant.

Marketing

To promote the film, RoboCop made a guest appearance at WCW's pay-per-view event Capital Combat, where he rescued Sting from The Four Horsemen.[10][11]

Soundtrack

RoboCop 2 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Film score by Leonard Rosenman
Released August 31, 1993
Recorded 1990
Genre Soundtrack
Length 30:19
Label Varèse Sarabande
Producer Leonard Rosenman
Leonard Rosenman chronology
Where Pigeons Go to Die
(1990)		 RoboCop 2
(1990)		 Aftermath: A Test of Love
(1991)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Soundtrack-express.com[12]
Soundtrackcollector.com[13]
SoundtrackNet(3.1/5)[14]
Runmovies.eu[15]

The film score was composed and conducted by Leonard Rosenman, who did not use any of Basil Poledouris's themes from the first film; the soundtrack album was released by Varèse Sarabande. It was not well received by fans or film music reviewers, many of whom complained about Rosenman's use of a choir chanting "Robocop."

The glam metal group Babylon A.D. released a song called "The Kid Goes Wild", written by members Derek Davis, Vic Pepe, and Jack Ponti.[16] The song is played in the background in the middle part of the film, and it was also used to promote the film. The group created a music video featuring RoboCop targeting the band and having a shootout with some bad guys (footage of the film was also used).

Track listing
  1. "Overture: Robocop" – 6:02
  2. "City Mayhem" – 3:37
  3. "Happier Days" – 1:28
  4. "Robo Cruiser" – 4:40
  5. "Robo Memories" – 2:07
  6. "Robo and Nuke" – 2:22
  7. "Robo Fanfare" – 0:32
  8. "Robo and Cain Chase" – 2:41
  9. "Creating the Monster" – 2:47
  10. "Robo I vs. Robo II" – 3:41

Reception

Box office and critical response

RoboCop 2 debuted as the second-highest grossing film at the box office in its opening weekend,[17][18] in spite of receiving mixed reviews from critics. While the special effects and action sequences are widely praised, a common complaint was that the film did not focus enough on RoboCop and his partner Lewis and that the film's human story of the man trapped inside the machine was ultimately lost within a sea of violence.

In his Chicago Sun Times review, Roger Ebert wrote, "Cain's sidekicks include a violent, foul-mouthed young boy named Hob, who looks to be about 12 years old but kills people without remorse, swears like Eddie Murphy, and eventually takes over the drug business... The movie's screenplay is a confusion of half-baked and unfinished ideas... the use of that killer child is beneath contempt."[19]

Additionally, the film "reset" RoboCop's character by turning him back into the monotone-voiced peacekeeper seen early in the first film, despite his reclaiming his human identity and personality by the end of that film. Many were also critical of the child villain Hob; David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews stated, "That the film asks us to swallow a moment late in the story that features Robo taking pity on an injured Hob is heavy-handed and ridiculous (we should probably be thankful the screenwriters didn't have RoboCop say something like, 'Look at what these vile drugs have done to this innocent boy')."[20]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Unlike RoboCop, a clever and original science-fiction film with a genuinely tragic vision of its central character, Robocop 2 doesn't bother to do anything new. It freely borrows the situation, characters and moral questions posed by the first film." She further adds, "The difference between Robocop and its sequel, [...] is the difference between an idea and an afterthought." She also expressed her opinion about the Hob character, "The aimlessness of Robocop 2 runs so deep that after exploiting the inherent shock value of such an innocent-looking killer, the film tries to capitalize on his youth by also giving him a tearful deathbed scene."[21] The Los Angeles Times published a review panning the film as well.[22]

Jay Scott, of the Toronto Globe and Mail, was one of the few prominent critics who admired the film calling it a "sleek and clever sequel. For fans of violent but clever action films, RoboCop 2 may be the sultry season's best bet: you get the gore of Total Recall and the satiric smarts of Gremlins 2: The New Batch in one high-tech package held together by modest B-movie strings. RoboCop 2 alludes to classics of horror and science-fiction (Frankenstein, Metropolis, Westworld), for sure, but it also evokes less rarefied examples of the same genres–Forbidden Planet, Godzilla, and that Z-movie about Hitler's brain in a bottle. It's ironic that the directorial coach of the first RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven, went on to Total Recall; couldn't he see that the script for Robo 2 was sleeker and swifter than Arnie's cumbersome vehicle? His absence in the driver's seat is happily unnoticed because Irvin Kershner, the engineer of sequels that often zip qualitatively past the originals (The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of a Man Called Horse, and the best Sean Connery–James Bond of all, Never Say Never Again), has tuned-up the premise until it purrs."[23]

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected 34 reviews to give the film a score of 32%, with average rating of 4.5 out of 10.[4]

Years later, the plot element of Detroit filing for bankruptcy later received attention from the news media after it actually happened in 2013. As recounted by the New York Post, "On Dec. 3, judge Steven Rhodes looked at Detroit’s $18.5 billion debt and deemed the city bankrupt—making it the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history."[5]

Home media

The film was first released to VHS on October 11, 1990, and was later released to DVD in June 2004. The film first received a Blu-ray release on September 13, 2011.

Adaptations

Novel

A mass market paperback novelization by Ed Naha, titled RoboCop 2: A Novel, was published by Jove Books. Marvel Comics produced a three-issue adaptation of the film by Alan Grant. Like the novelization, the comic book series includes scenes omitted from the finished movie.

Frank Miller's Robocop

Frank Miller's original screenplay for RoboCop 2 took on an almost legendary status, and was later turned into a nine-part comic book series titled Frank Miller's RoboCop. Critical reaction to the comic adaptation of the Miller script was mixed. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the comic a "D" score, criticizing the "tired story" and lack of "interesting action."[24] A recap written for the pop culture humor website I-Mockery said, "Having spent quite a lot of time with these comics over the past several days researching and writing this article, I can honestly say that it makes me want to watch the movie version of RoboCop 2 again just so I can get the bad taste out of my mouth. Or prove to myself that the movie couldn't be worse than this."[25]

See also

References

  1. ↑ RoboCop 2 @ BoxOfficeMojo
  2. ↑ http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1990/0RCP2.php
  3. ↑ Kershner, Irvin (1990-07-16). "RoboCop 2: Entertainment, Yes but Also a Hero for Our Times". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-10-13.
  4. 1 2 "RoboCop 2". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 2010-08-17.
  5. 1 2 Gross, Max (2014-02-09). "'RoboCop' predictions that came true – and those that did not". New York Post.
  6. ↑ Westbrook, Bruce (1990-06-22). "'RoboCop 2' creators give city rave reviews". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2011-02-07.
  7. ↑ Westbrook, Bruce (1990-12-14). "'Gremlins' sequel better than the original film". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2011-02-07.
  8. ↑ J.R. Gonzales (1 Feb 2009). "Old Jeff Davis Hospital gets state recognition". http://www.houstonchronicle.com. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 14 July 2014. External link in |website= (help)
  9. ↑ Dyer, R.A. (1989-10-13). "Hollywood in Houston? Scores flock to filming of 'Robocop 2'". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2011-02-07.
  10. ↑ Kelly, Tim (2013-03-19). "When RoboCop Saved Sting and Ruined Professional Wrestling". CHUD.com. Retrieved 2013-09-25.
  11. ↑ Mrosko, Greg (2012-06-24). "Video: WWE Are You Serious? Makes Fun of WCW, RoboCop Rescuing Sting". Cageside Seats. Retrieved 2013-09-25.
  12. ↑ Soundtrack-express Review
  13. ↑
  14. ↑ SoundtrackNet Review
  15. ↑ Runmovies.eu Review
  16. ↑ http://www.allmusic.com/song/the-kid-goes-wild-t14889430
  17. ↑ Broeske, Pat H. (1990-06-25). "'Tracy' Stands Firm at No. 1; 'RoboCop2' Is 2". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
  18. ↑ Broeske, Pat H. (1990-06-26). "'Dick Tracy' Clings to No. 1 Spot Second Week in a Row". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-10-13.
  19. ↑ Ebert, Roger (June 22, 1990). "Robocop 2". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
  20. ↑ Nusair, David. "Robocop 2". Retrieved 12 August 2010.
  21. ↑ Maslin, Janet (June 22, 1990). "Review / Film; New Challenge and Enemy For a Cybernetic Organism". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-08-17.
  22. ↑ Rainer, Peter (1990-06-22). "An Overhauled 'RoboCop 2'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-08-22.
  23. ↑ Scott, Jay (22 June 1990). "RoboCop 2". The Globe and Mail. p. C.8.
  24. ↑ Review by Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly, September 5, 2003
  25. ↑ "Frank Miller's Roboflop", I-Mockery, March 31, 2008

External links

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