9/18/06: RoboCop 2 (1990)One of the few surprises amongst last week’s 9/11 commemorations was
a patriotic appeal on NPR—from noted graphic novelist Frank Miller, too. Some folks might assume that Miller would be RightWingTrash just for his hard-boiled
Sin City books. We’d like to think so, but Miller has routinely balanced good conservative moments with dopey Leftist fantasy. We’re looking forward to seeing his Batman battling Al-Qaeda, but we can’t assume that Alfred won’t pipe up to give 9/11 conspiracies some equal time.
Still, all this has reminded us of Miller’s fine work as co-scripter of
RoboCop 2. It was a bad experience for Miller, and pretty much soured him on Hollywood until Robert Rodriguez came along with that fine
Sin City treatment.
RoboCop 2 remains an underrated production—co-scripted, to be fair, by Walon Green, whose own career covers Leftist crap and great films such as
The Wild Bunch (1969) and
Sorcerer (1977).
RoboCop 2 opens with a likable commercial parody where a smiling John Glover pitches The MagnaVolt, which we see electrocuting a car thief. “And it won’t even run down your battery,” says Glover. We’ll buy that for a dollar. Then the plot sends us into true Miller territory, with an urban hellhole straight out of his
Dark Knight comics. (Yes, we’ll cover those later.)
The film’s mainly about the OCP corporation—who created RoboCop—taking over a futuristic Detroit by forcing the city to go into debt over a police strike. Meanwhile, the evil Cain is flooding the city with the designer drug Nuke. (His weasley chemist is played by Miller in a fine cameo.) Cain lures the pesky RoboCop into a trap, where his gang basically disassembles our hero.
RoboCop’s been getting lectured on how he’s got to quit acting human, and an OCP psychiatrist gladly takes advantage of the chance to do some reprogramming. Dr. Faax (nicely played by Belinda Bauer) holds a focus group where OCP executives make suggestions:
“Couldn’t he address environmental issues?”
“For all the shooting he does, I’ve never once seen him do anything nice, like visit an orphanage.”
“If he could just talk things out sometimes…”
It takes some “dialoguing,” but Dr. Faax finally gets RoboCop to download an enlightened new personality. He gets back on the street just in time to take on a Little League team that’s looting an electronics store. RoboCop starts by reading Miranda rights to a corpse who’d still be shooting at him if it weren’t for his partner (played by the adorable Nancy Allen). RoboCop finally makes it into the store, and doesn’t bother arresting the kids. Instead, he starts lecturing them. “Think of Mom and Dad,” he says. “What kind of lessons are you teaching them? And now, a word on nutrition…”
The kids take the loot and run off. Things don’t get better. RoboCop is only inspired into action by kids playing in an open fire hydrant (“Haste makes waste,” he admonishes), and then he unloads his pistol as a warning to a guy who’s smoking. There’s also this classic display of liberal logic, as RoboCop makes small talk with Lewis:
“Isn’t the moon wonderful tonight?”
“It’s daytime.”
“It’s the thought that counts.”
RoboCop finally wises up enough to stick his hands into a live generator and shock himself free of “all this nonsense in his brain”— to quote a police technician. Then he’s off to shut down a drug cartel. The film goes on for a while from there, and high points include the crooked mayor who makes a deal with the Nuke dealers. When an aide complains that his new partners are criminals, the Mayor is indignant: “Why do you label people? I hate labels!”
Sadly, the script doesn’t address how RoboCop’s “Protect the innocent” directive can’t keep him from shooting evil little kids. That’s partly how he gets disassembled in the first place. The minors looting the store would’ve gotten off easy, anyway.
RoboCop 2 still offers lots of right-wing fun. You’ll notice, however, that the villainous OCP executive has a picture of himself with Ronald Reagan on his desk. Maybe we shouldn’t blame Miller for that one.
Make it your own: Get it
cheap on DVD, although a
RoboCop Boxed Set is a better deal. (We’ve linked to the superior version with the unrated original from 1987.) There’s one good reason to go with
a cheap RoboCop 2 on VHS. We’re not sure if the DVD includes Weller’s public-service spot for the “100 percent drug-free” Boys and Girls Club.
Also, Miller took his original rejected script and turned it into a
Frank Miller’s RoboCop series.
A complete collection is set for release in November. And, of course, we always endorse
cheap paperback novelizations.
