RoboCop 2
Film poster
Directed by	Irvin Kershner
Produced by	Jon Davison
Written by	Screenplay: Frank Miller Walon Green Story: Frank Miller Based on Characters Created by: Edward Neumeier Michael Miner
Starring	Peter Weller Nancy Allen Belinda Bauer John Glover Mario Machado Leeza Gibbons John Ingle Tom Noonan Roger Aaron Brown Gabriel Damon Mark Rolston Lila Finn John Hateley Gage Tarrant Thomas Rosales, Jr. Brandon Smith Wallace Merck
Music by	Leonard Rosenman
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Editing by	Armen Minasian Julie Offer Lee Smith Deborah Zeitman
Distributed by	Orion Pictures Corporation
Release date(s)	22 June 1990
Running time	117 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Preceded by	RoboCop (1987)
Followed by	RoboCop 3 (1993)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

RoboCop 2 is a 1990 science fiction film set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. It is the sequel to the 1987 film RoboCop. The title character is played by Peter Weller, who also played RoboCop in the first film. However, although a second sequel and a television series were made, this was the last time Weller played the role, due to complaints of how cumbersome and exhausting it was to wear the suit and also due to the fact that Weller found RoboCop 2 to be a very negative and disappointing film to work on. Weller's co-star, Nancy Allen, had similar negative feelings regarding the second film. Frank Miller (who wrote the first draft of the script that was drastically altered in rewrites outside of his approval) became completely disenchanted with the Hollywood system as a whole. Image File history File links RoboCop2. ... Irvin Kershner (born April 29, 1923) is an American film director born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ... Jon Davison is a film producer. ... This article is about Frank Miller, the comic book writer and artist. ... Walon Green (b. ... This article is about Frank Miller, the comic book writer and artist. ... Edward Neumeier is a screenwriter best known for his work on the science fiction movies RoboCop (with Michael Miner) and Starship Troopers. ... Peter Weller (born June 24, 1947) is an Academy Award-nominated American film and stage actor, director and lecturer. ... Nancy Allen is the name of: an actress best known for her roles in films including Dressed to Kill and Blow Out,formerly married to Brian De Palma. ... Belinda Bauer (born January 1, 1951) is an Australian actress whose promising career never led to super-stardom. ... John Glover (born August 7, 1944 in Salisbury, Maryland) is an American actor, best known for a range of villainous roles in films and television, including Lionel Luthor in Smallville. ... Leeza Kim Gibbons (born March 26, 1957) is an American talk show host. ... John Ingle (born May 7, 1928, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an actor best known for his role as evil patriarch Edward Quartermaine on the ABC daytime drama, General Hospital. ... Noonan as Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter, 1986 Tom Noonan (born April 12, 1951) is an American actor and film writer-director. ... Roger Aaron Brown is an African-American character actor,born on June 12 in Washington, DC.He is well known for his roll as Deputy Chief Joe Noland on the hit CBS drama series The District from 2000 to 2004,and is well known for his roll in the 1988... Gabriel Damon as Spot Conlon in the film Newsies Gabriel Damon (born April 23, 1976 in Reno, Nevada) is an American actor. ... Mark Rolston (R) in Aliens Mark Rolston (December 7, 1956 - ) an American actor, born in Baltimore, Maryland. ... Thomas Rosales, Jr. ... Leonard Rosenman (born September 7, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American film, television and concert composer. ... Mark Irwin is a prolific Canadian cinematographer. ... Lee Smith is an ACE-certified film editor. ... Orion Pictures Logo Orion Pictures Corporation was a United States movie production company, formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. ... is the 173rd day of the year (174th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... RoboCop is a 1987 science-fiction, action movie and satire of business-driven capitalism, directed by Paul Verhoeven. ... Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ... RoboCop 3 is a science fiction film, released in 1993, set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... The year 1990 in film involved some significant events. ... Science fiction film is a film genre that uses speculative, science-based depictions of imaginary phenomena such as extra-terrestrial lifeforms, alien worlds, and time travel, often along with technological elements such as futuristic spacecraft, robots, or other technologies. ... This article is about the philosophical concept and literary form. ... Motto: Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus (We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise From the Ashes - this motto was adopted after the disastrous 1805 fire that devastated the city) Nickname: The Motor City and Motown Location in Wayne County, Michigan Founded Incorporated July 24, 1701 1815  County Wayne County Mayor... This article is about the U.S. State. ... For other uses, see Sequel (disambiguation). ... // May 9 - Actor Tom Cruise marries actress Mimi Rogers. ... RoboCop is a 1987 science-fiction, action movie and satire of business-driven capitalism, directed by Paul Verhoeven. ... Peter Weller (born June 24, 1947) is an Academy Award-nominated American film and stage actor, director and lecturer. ... Nancy Anne Allen (born June 24, 1950) is an American film actress. ... This article is about Frank Miller, the comic book writer and artist. ...

Despite not being directed by Paul Verhoeven, the director of the first film, RoboCop 2 contains many of his hallmarks, such as satirical television commercials (such as for an ultra powerful sunblock to deal with the devastation of Earth's ozone layer) and upbeat news broadcasts, hallmarks which also appear in Verhoeven's later film Starship Troopers. The events in the second film closely follow the events in the first film (the ED-209 unit, for example, is mentioned as being deployed and malfunctioning). Paul Verhoeven (IPA: [pʌul vɛrhuvən]) (born July 18, 1938 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch film director, screenwriter, and film producer. ... Director Herbert Brenon with actress Alla Nazimova on the set of War Brides, 1916 A director is a person who directs the making of a film. ... From the earliest days of the medium, television has been used as a vehicle for advertising in some countries. ... Sunscreen or sunblock is a lotion that is applied to reduce skin damage by blocking ultraviolet radiation from the sun. ... The ozone layer is a layer in Earths atmosphere which contains relatively high concentrations of ozone (O3). ... Starship Troopers is a 1997 film directed by Paul Verhoeven, written by Edward Neumeier, and starring Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer and Denise Richards. ... The first appearance of the ED-209 in the first RoboCop film The Enforcement Droid Series 209 (or ED-209) is a fictional law enforcement robot featured as one of the design and special effect highlights of the movie RoboCop (1987), and its two sequels. ...

RoboCop 2 was directed by Irvin Kershner from a script by Frank Miller and Walon Green, although Miller's contributions were muted through rewrites. Miller's original script, deemed "unfilmable" by producers, was later turned into a nine-part comic book series called Frank Miller's RoboCop. Irvin Kershner (born April 29, 1923) is an American film director born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ... Walon Green (b. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... Frank Millers RoboCop (also known as Frank Miller--RoboCop) is comic book mini-series published by Avatar Press. ...

RoboCop 2 was followed by its own sequel, RoboCop 3. RoboCop 3 is a science fiction film, released in 1993, set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. ...

Taglines:

• He's back to protect the innocent.
• Even in the future of law enforcement there is room for improvement.

Plot

The main plot of RoboCop 2 is the title character's struggle to regain the humanity that many characters in the film felt he lost when he was turned into RoboCop (a cyborg combining the brain and other tissue from the corpse of a murdered police officer, Alex Murphy, with a primarily robotic body) in the first film. Indeed, that motif drove most of the events of the first film, and is a widely used theme (comprising the main theme of, inter alia, Pinocchio, Frankenstein, the Tin Man character in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Edward Scissorhands, and the character Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation). However, in contrast to the dominant main plot of the first film, the story in RoboCop 2 is mainly driven by a number of sub-plots. For other uses, see Cyborg (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Body (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see robot (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Pinocchio (disambiguation). ... This article is about the 1818 novel. ... Tin Man may refer to: In television: Tin Man (Stargate SG-1), an episode of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1 Tin Man (TNG episode), an episode from the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation Tin Man (miniseries), a modern re-imagining of The Wonderful Wizard... The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a childrens novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow. ... Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 fantasy film, directed and co-written by Tim Burton and written by Caroline Thompson. ... Data[1] is a character, portrayed by Brent Spiner, in the Star Trek fictional universe. ... The title as it appeared in most episodes opening credits. ...

One sub-plot, introduced at the beginning of the movie, concerns the consequences of RoboCop's realization of his former identity, and his impotent attempt to reach out to his family. Having found out where they moved after he was killed, he merely drives by their house day after day, greatly distressing his former wife (Angie Bolling). She eventually complains and threatens to sue OCP, so they allow her to see him. Beforehand, Holzgang (Jeff McCarthy), an OCP lawyer, insistently reminds RoboCop that he could never have his life back as Alex Murphy and that he is a machine. Upon seeing his wife, he tells her that the face was placed on him to honor the dead Alex Murphy and that he is just a machine. Though impassive in the face of her sadness and confusion, he watches intently as she leaves his life forever. Omni Consumer Products (OCP) is the primary fictional corporation in the RoboCop series of movies, tv-shows, video-games, and comics. ... Jeff McCarthy is an American character actor who has appeared in television, theatre and films. ...

The overarching plot of the movie concerns OCP's attempt to cause the old City of Detroit to default on its debt, so that OCP can foreclose, take over the city government, demolish the old city, and put up a planned community (Delta City) in its place. OCP espouses the replacement of government with corporate control; their argument that "anybody can buy OCP's stock, and own a piece of our city. What could be more democratic than that?" can be considered a type of market populism. As part of this plan, it forces a police strike by terminating their pension plan. As RoboCop cannot go on strike, this merely increases his duties as the city sinks further into chaos and terror. In finance, default occurs when a debtor has not met its legal obligations according to the debt contract, e. ... Foreclosure is the equitable proceeding in which a bank or other secured creditor sells or repossesses a parcel of real property (immovable property) due to the owners failure to comply with an agreement between the lender and borrower called a mortgage or deed of trust. ... Market populism is a term coined by Thomas Frank for the concept that the free market is more democratic than any democracy. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Meanwhile, the Security Concepts division of OCP continues to sink tens of millions of dollars into the development of a more advanced and stronger cyborg — a "RoboCop 2." Each project ends up a disaster; once the transformed officers realize what they've become, they immediately turn suicidal (one shoots the scientists around him before killing himself). Murphy only survived and adapted because of his exceedingly strong sense of duty to the law (and, in the first movie, his desire for vengeance against Boddicker). Therefore, the scientists come up with a new idea — a criminal with a similar overcoming desire: a desire for power and immortality, regardless of the cost.

In this movie, RoboCop's primary mission is to deal with the distribution of a powerful designer drug named "Nuke". The primary distributor, Cain (Tom Noonan), appears to have a messiah complex due to his own drug abuse; he believes that Nuke is the way to paradise, and wants to distribute it to the entire city. He is assisted by his girlfriend Angie (Galyn Görg); a foul-mouthed yet competent ten-year old boy, Hob (Gabriel Damon), whom RoboCop cannot shoot because of his age and the resemblance to his own son; and Officer Duffy, a corrupt police officer who is controlled by his addiction to Nuke. Designer drug is a term to used to describe psychoactive drugs which are created (or marketed, if they had already existed) to get around existing drug laws by modifying their molecular structures to varying degrees. ... Noonan as Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter, 1986 Tom Noonan (born April 12, 1951) is an American actor and film writer-director. ... Paradise, Jan Bruegel Paradise is an English word from Persian roots that is generally identified with the Garden of Eden or with Heaven. ... Gabriel Damon as Spot Conlon in the film Newsies Gabriel Damon (born April 23, 1976 in Reno, Nevada) is an American actor. ...

Having learned of Cain's involvement in the production of Nuke, RoboCop confronts him and his gang at an abandoned construction site, in which he is rendered immobile by a powerful electromagnet and disassembled; the pieces are left in front of the striking officers of the Detroit Police. OCP is reluctant to foot his massive repair costs, and considers shutting him down for good, despite protests from the RoboCop project members and fellow police officers. Later Cain has Duffy tortured to death for telling Robocop where the hideout was. An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of an electric current. ...

However, RoboCop is saved when Dr. Juliette Faxx (Belinda Bauer), an OCP psychologist who has taken charge of the new RoboCop team, argues for his importance as a figure of the community; through lobbying a panel of private citizens, she creates a list of over 300 new directives to be added to his program. Though resistant at first, Murphy is ultimately powerless to refuse the new commands, and is rendered unable to take aggressive action against criminals, even to defend himself (except for one instance where he shoots around a man's head to get him to stop smoking). Eventually examined by the original RoboCop team at the police department, a suggestion on how the directives might be cleared leads him to shock himself with electrical current, clearing all the directives (even the initial four). He then declares war on Cain, immediately leading the striking officers off the picket line to attack Cain's hideout. Belinda Bauer (born January 1, 1951) is an Australian actress whose promising career never led to super-stardom. ...

The plots cross when Cain is badly injured in the battle with RoboCop. Though Angie wants to rescue Cain from the hospital, Hob considers him already dead and moves to take control of the Nuke distribution. Faxx, having decided that Cain has the perfect mindset for the new cyborg, arrives at the hospital and switches off his life support, calling for an immediate brain removal and transplant. Displaying the new RoboCop to the head of OCP, Faxx demonstrates how he may be pacified through a canister of pure Nuke, the only way the pain of Cain's new existence can be dulled.

Meanwhile, Hob, as the new leader of the drug cartel in Old Detroit, arranges a secret meeting with the desperate mayor (Willard E. Pugh), offering to bail out the city's debt to OCP — but only if the mayor agrees to a hands-off policy regarding the distribution of Nuke. Since this would hinder OCP's attempts to take over the city, the corporation sends RoboCop 2 in for the ostensible purpose of breaking up the drug operation, while actually ordering the cyborg to kill all parties involved. While the mayor escapes through a sewer drain, both his and Hob's bodyguards are killed, as well as Angie and Hob themselves. RoboCop arrives late on the scene, in time to comfort a dying Hob and be told of RoboCop 2's actions. Willard E. Pugh is an American actor with numerous film and television credits. ...

The movie ends with a climactic battle between RoboCop and RoboCop 2 during the unveiling of Delta City and the new cyborg at a press conference. The OCP President unwittingly presents a canister filled with Nuke; Cain escapes control and begins to run amok, destroying the control device that prevents his weapons from firing, then opening fire on the crowd in desperation for the canister of Nuke. RoboCop, arriving just beforehand and watching to see if Hob was right about RoboCop 2, returns fire.

The two cyborgs battle back and forth throughout the building, eventually falling off the roof and into an underground facility; RoboCop 2 attacks with a welder, but RoboCop directs it towards a gas pipe, causing a large explosion. RoboCop pulls himself up to the street through the hole blown in the pavement, and heads back into the OCP building, his intent unknown. RoboCop 2 emerges in similar fashion, engaging the police in a firefight; Lewis rams him into a wall with a tank, but he soon shrugs it off.

RoboCop then emerges with the canister of Nuke from the press conference, saying "Let's give him what he wants." Upon seeing the canister, RoboCop 2 immediately ceases fire and eventually takes the Nuke; while he is thus distracted, RoboCop jumps onto his back, punches his way through to Cain's brain, and smashes it onto the pavement.

The Chairman of OCP, executive Johnson, and lawyer Holzgang discuss OCP liability for the massacre, and decide to scapegoat Faxx, claiming that she acted without company support in designing RoboCop 2. Holzgang is confident that he can find evidence against Faxx "whether it exists or not."

In the final scene of the film, Lewis laments how the OCP executives will escape legally unscathed. RoboCop, using a socket wrench on his head, replies: "Patience, Lewis. We're only human."

Critical reaction

This film was strongly reviled by both critics and fans of the first film. Many found it to be overly mean-spirited and violent, but without the razor-sharp wit and style that Paul Verhoeven brought to the first film. 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 bad taste and sadistic cruelty. In his review, Roger Ebert said "Cain's sidekicks include a violent, foul-mouthed young boy (Gabriel Damon), 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..." (It should be noted that, at the time, Eddie Murphy had gained fame doing off-color stand-up and was starring in R-rated movies like Raw, 48 Hrs., and as well as the first and second Beverly Hills Cop movies, all of which contained excessive use of profanity). Roger Joseph Ebert (born June 18, 1942) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic. ... Gabriel Damon as Spot Conlon in the film Newsies Gabriel Damon (born April 23, 1976 in Reno, Nevada) is an American actor. ... For other uses, see Eddie Murphy (disambiguation). ... Eddie Murphy Raw (1987) is an American stand-up comedy film directed by Robert Townsend and starring Eddie Murphy. ... 48 Hrs. ... Beverly Hills Cop (1984) is an American comedy film directed by Martin Brest and starring Eddie Murphy. ...

Additionally, the movie "reset" RoboCop's character by turning him back into the monotone-voiced lawgiver seen early in the first film (despite the fact that by the end of the first film, he had regained the human identity and speech mannerisms of Alex Murphy). Some felt that the change in the Old Man from a morally ambiguous, but harmless character to a cold villain was unnecessary. Many were also turned off by the presence of the sadistic, foul-mouthed child villain Hob and were very offended when the film's storyline expected the audience to sympathize with Hob upon his death. David Nusair of http://www.reelfilm.com 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')." Also, even after RoboCop 2 kills Hob, Angie, and the rest of the Nuke drug cartel, the Old Man mentions that the production of Nuke was still ongoing and that RoboCop 2 would root out and destroy every producer of Nuke in Old Detroit. But in the end, after RoboCop 2 is killed, there is no mention of the fate of Nuke, or if RoboCop would continue his war on the drug. In the next movie, RoboCop 3, there is absolutely no mention of the drug, probably since the producers wanted to make the movie more family friendly, so any drug references were cut out. RoboCop 3 is a science fiction film, released in 1993, set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. ...

See also

• RoboCop, RoboCop 3, and RoboCop: Prime Directives
• Frank Miller's RoboCop

RoboCop is a 1987 science-fiction, action movie and satire of business-driven capitalism, directed by Paul Verhoeven. ... RoboCop 3 is a science fiction film, released in 1993, set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. ... Frank Millers RoboCop (also known as Frank Miller--RoboCop) is comic book mini-series published by Avatar Press. ...

References

External links

• RoboCop 2 at the Internet Movie Database

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