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ROBOCOP 2 - CRITICAL REACTION
This was the last time Weller played the role. RoboCop 2 was directed by Irvin Kershner from a script by Frank Miller and Walon Green. Miller's original script, deemed "unfilmable" by producers, was later turned into a comic book series called Frank Miller's RoboCop.
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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. (The ultra powerful sunblock to deal with the devastation of Earth's ozone layer which ironically also cause cancer, 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).
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.
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. 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 2 was also a departure from the original movie with Leonard Rosenman taking over duties from Basil Poledouris. A criticism of Rosenman's score was his lack of use of Poledouris's main themes which were created in the original movie.
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