Director: Fred Dekker
Cast: Robert Burke, Nancy Allen, Jill Hennessy, Remy Ryan
Have I Seen it Before: Here’s the thing about Robocop 3. Imagine being around ten years old, and the only thing you want to watch is Robocop (1987). Notorious, sublimely violent Robocop. Sure, it gets broadcast on TV, but that’s like waiting for a lunar eclipse. There’s this movie, which delivers a… modicum of Robocop-ness in a package marked by the MPAA to get past the shrewdest of parental goalies. It’s not a good enough movie to own, but you’ll be damned if you didn’t rent it five or six times over the course of the 90s, dreaming of the day when both Mom and the MPAA would not hold you down, and you could have free reign over both the original and Robocop 2 (1990).
I have no trouble imagining that.
Did I Like It: It’s going to be impossible to say that anything other than the original Robocop is worth a damn, but the question is does this film deserve the hate it has.
Sure, the film’s ultimate mortal sin is that it tries to market itself to kids, shut out the original’s (and the sequel’s) visceral qualities, in exchange for a kid sidekick (Ryan) and a PG-13 rating. The same thing which allowed the movie to fly under the radar of the hyper-vigilant 90s parent defangs things.
Peter Weller leaves the role, knowing that practically anyone with a particular kind of chin can meet the studio’s requirement* for a poster, but throws away all of the thoughtful work toward making Murphy move like his body was replaced by chrome and servos.
But is it worse than Robocop 2? Here’s where the this review might become just a touch controversial: No, I think Robocop 2 is far, far worse. Yes, the first sequel has the begrudging participation of Weller, but that’s the only round in which the other film wins. Robocop 2 tries to ape the original with none of the soul or wit, each and every time I watch it (and I did re-watch it shortly after viewing this film again), it rings a little bit more hollow. This movie to imitates some of the beats in the original film, but manages to throw in some new shades as well. B-movie nonsense (Robocop versus an android ninja/samurai from Japan, anyone?) has some baser pleasures to behold, while Robocop and the Detroit Police Department actually helping poor people plays a lot more like wish fulfillment than it must have in the 90s.
In addition, Robocop 3 has one secret weapon which makes it at least attempt to feel more in line with its cinematic ancestor. Basil Poledouris, and when I find Leonard Rosenman’s score for Robocop 2 to be one of the worst scores for an action movie ever, the return of Poledouris’ march goes a long way to engendering at least some good will from me.
*Yes, Orion. The same studio which was hemorrhaging money at this point (less than a year out of their Best Picture win for The Silence of the Lambs (1991)), and had to leave the movie on a shelf for upwards of two years.