RoboCop 2
1990
D: Irvin Kershner
**********
Pros: Visuals, Design, Violence, Writing has its moments
Cons: Heavy-handed comedic tone, No original theme song
RoboCop is a classic satire. Paul Verhoeven was able to strike a very difficult balance that shined light upon the flaws of capitalism while still maintaining realistic, sympathetic characterizations. As a result, it’s easy for it to be mistaken for an earnest work while not veering too far into being a truly confused attempt at parody. Its depiction of the corporate power is even more apparent after one has evolved to recognize it as a problem. After being raised to defend unfettered capitalism, it’s particularly embarrassing when you’ve had to have it weaponized against you to learn your lesson. Some things must be run with representation, not through the faux “choice” of a commercial monopoly.
Unfortunately, RoboCop 2 lacks the aforementioned balance. Verhoeven’s style is hard to recreate, even for the director of my favorite movie. The humor in the movie is far too heavy-handed and it often turns into a sort of live-action cartoon. The sound effects and music in this scene, for example, are decidedly over-the-top (although the part where the engineer cringingly nurses his bandaged arm in reaction to seeing it get shot on video is funny). At one point there’s even slide-whistle as two characters take a fall. All this might have been perfectly fine camp had it not been done under the expectations set by the first film. Even when I was a kid I thought the little league team gang was too much.
The buffoonery is not simply limited to style. The commentary is also overdone, being more akin to a partisan political cartoon. In an early scene a news channel reports on the environmentalists’ issue with a nuclear accident with the anchors saying something like, “Of course, they would say that,” critiquing the clear bias our media apparently has in favor of nuclear power. I’ve noticed that one of the perks of running the media is the unlimited license to use the media to pretend you don’t run the media. Not to say the liberal satire’s the only problem; when RoboCop (Peter Weller) is repaired after being mutilated by a gang, OCP psychologist Juliette Faxx (Belinda Bauer) suggests that his programming directives be expanded to include a plethora of bad 80/90’s jokes about political correctness. The resultant restraints leave him unable to do his job until he short-circuits himself on purpose to delete them. The in-universe commercials are also cringe-inducingly unsubtle.
This results in the most apparent character derailment of the movie: the Old Man (Dan O’Herlihy). In the first movie, he’s depicted as an affable person, not necessarily good, but not necessarily malicious. He seemed to mean well without realizing how corrupt and damaging his empire really was. Turning him into a mustache-twirling caricature of a villain not only undermined the movie’s characterization but also its themes. It was far more of an effective indictment of runaway capitalism in the first movie to have him be seemingly innocent. At the end of the debacle, he even utters the cartoonish phrase “we need to get our best people to spin this.” He’s even shown to be a dirty old man on top of that. As if the caricature isn’t enough, OCP’s headquarters are flanked with Nazi-style banners.
 |
| Above: subtlety |
Not to say the movie is entirely without decent commentary. The reliable presence of Johnson (Felton Perry) in the movie series is a statement on the ability of mediocre but ambitious people to maintain power in corporate in political systems. In this movie his attempts to recreate the success of RoboCop end in failure, and he regains his position by convincing the old man to throw Dr. Faxx under the bus after the RoboCop 2 debacle. There’s also a nice moment where someone absurdly asserts that people could buy stock in OCP’s all-powerful corporate monopoly, and “what could be more democratic than that?”
Another plus is the depiction of Murphy/RoboCop, at least in the first act. He’s seen watching his wife (Angie Bolling) from afar, and when she notices she files a lawsuit for harassment. Realizing that he must eventually let her go and allow her to have a normal life, he tells her a noble lie: Murphy is dead, and there is nothing left of him, sacrificing his family. RoboCop also feels some paternal reluctance to kill Hob (Gabriel Damon), a child who’s also a violent gang member. When the latter is eventually killed, he holds the boy’s hand until he’s gone. I remember watching a TV version in which Hob succumbs to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, despite the presence of ultraviolence in the edit). It was distracting, but it makes sense that the kids would remove himself from the entire situation after seeing RoboCop 2 in action. I also like the theory that Murphy’s staunch Catholicism helped him psychologically survive a forced transition into a cyborg. There is something to the doctrine of self-denial that would help with that. However, this theory was also floated by the character who thought that putting the brain of a violent, drug-addicted crime lord into a weaponized robot body was a good idea. Frank Miller did write the story, so this would be consistent with his inconsistent depiction of Roman Catholicism.
The movie is also remarkably ultraviolent, even outdoing the first entry. This is one instance where it does justice. An appropriately twisted moment is when Cain’s (Tom Noonan) brain is excised from the body, it’s kept in a water tank with intact eyes, being forced to watch as techs mess around with what’s left of the face. The most triumphant moment of comically over-the-top violence is when RoboCop kills RoboCain by taking its brain (which is apparently connected via wi-fi) out of the shell, and destroys it as the other cyborg watches in horror, throwing the jar against the ground, scattering the brains everywhere while RoboCain is STILL SOMEHOW CONSCIOUS until RoboCop melodramatically BASHES THE REMAINING BRAINS WITH HIS FIST.
The movie’s visuals are enhanced by Phil Tippett’s go-motion sequences. I particularly love the monstrous design of RoboCain. The retractable LCD screen on the robot body was also a novel use of CGI. Leonard Rosenman’s score is pleasantly florid, but the movie tragically lacks the iconic Basil Poledouris theme. There’s an enjoyable rock song in the soundtrack by Babylon AD. Nancy Allen returns as Officer Lewis.
RoboCop 2 is actually a fun movie that I cite as a guilt pleasure, but it has some simplistic satire that does not do justice to the original. Even the remake is at least a decent self-contained work. I intended to review it in time for its 30th anniversary, but I forgot.
QUOTES
ELLEN MURPHY: Alex? Don’t you know me? Don’t you remember me? Alex, it doesn’t matter what they’ve done to you, I…
ROBOCOP: Touch me.
ELLEN MURPHY: [touches his lips] It’s cold.
ROBOCOP: They made this to honor him.
ELLEN MURPHY: No, I…
ROBOCOP: Your husband is dead. I don’t know you.
[RoboCop watches sadly as she leaves crying]
JOHNSON: Uh, sir, what if this was all the work of one individual person? A woman who had her own agenda that wasn’t in sync with the goals of our company?
THE OLD MAN: Well…that usually works.
JOHNSON: A woman who was not a team player, who violated our trust? (Dr. Faxx)
THE OLD MAN: Well, we’ll need some evidence to support that.
HOLZGANG: Sir, whether it exists or not, I know I can find it.
JOHNSON: She did choose the brain, sir.
No comments:
Post a Comment