Robocop 2 - Should have been so much better

The original 'Robocop' film probably never deserved to be as good as it turned out.  It was totally a B-movie that just seemed to come together brilliantly in the perfect storm of over-the-top bloodthirsty action with even a sprinkling of political satire and social commentary thrown in there for good measure.  I sometimes wonder whether the film-makers even predicted how popular it would be, hence they never bargained on a sequel so quickly after the first.  However, even back then sequels were big business and the studio threw one out as soon as possible.

In short: a lot of people hated 'Robocop 2.' Yeah, I have to admit, it doesn't seem to come anywhere near capturing the atmosphere and feel of the original.  However, it's probably not (quite) as bad as most people make out.  If you liked the first then you'll probably enjoy this one, especially now you can either view it cheap of online as part of a streaming service.

The first film was set in the near future in a run-down Detroit where the police department was privatised and farmed out to a money-grabbing firm called OCP.  They decided to try and aid their law-enforcement money-making programme by creating robot police officers and, when unlucky subject Alex Murphy was 'killed' in the line of duty, what was left of his remains were used to create the titular cyborg.  The film was good because it had a perfect beginning, middle and end (again, something that leads me to believe that a sequel was never intended).  The conclusion was truly satisfying, which goes some why to explain why people were so annoyed that 'Part 2' effectively ignores most character development and starts the same story again...  only not as well.

It's the story that lets it down.  In short… it's a bit of a mess.  I hear a few writers gave their input on the script (and it shows!), including legendary comic book guru Frank Millar (who I believe gets credited, although there's debate as to how much of his story remains).  It's starts off pretty well.  In the first film Robocop slowly regained his humanity and remembered his family and life before his change.  This carries on until it doesn't.  It sort of gets dropped quite quickly in favour of going in a completely different direction where Robocop gets reprogrammed with more 'politically correct' directives.  This is quite funny, but it all seems a bit unnecessary as he soon recovers from that.

There's also no clear villain.  Okay, so you could say that it's Kane - a drug dealer Robocop is trying to catch.  Only, it's not just him in human form, but also the corrupt and uncaring OCP executives, bad cops and even the Mayor turns to criminal activities.  They really should have picked one (probably Kane) and stuck to him.  Only, Kane sort of goes out of it three quarters of the way through (no spoilers as to why and how - you'll see).  Other characters also come and go, most notably Robocop's human partner Lewis, who could have been cut altogether.  Then there's the only redeemable OCP executive 'Johnson' from the first film, who comes back only to act completely different and no explanation is offered as to his motivational change.
The story in general is pretty far-fetched (if you're okay with suspending your disbelief into thinking that robots are real).  OCP wants to create an upgraded Robocop (imaginatively called 'Robocop 2' believe it or not) so they decide to put a criminal's brain into the next version of the droid instead of a police officer's (ala 'Robocop 1').  If this seems a little stupid then you're right.  Who can't see what's going to happen?!

Yes, the end battle is quite well done, especially for the film's time (no major CGI here!) and it's kind of worth it for that, but there's a real sense of lacking a pay-off.  Many storylines aren't that well concluded (maybe they were thinking of ending these in another sequel?) and the film kind of ends exactly where the first one did, making the whole sequel kind of redundant.  However, like I say, it's an okay outing if you're in the mood for more Robocop.  Besides, the spoof adverts throughout the whole film are as amusing as before and, if you compare 'Robocop 2' to 'Robocop 3' then this is actually a masterpiece!

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that