In a shocking display of continuity from the last film, OCP’s control over Detroit has strengthened considerably as they prepare to move people out of their homes in order to start construction of the new Delta City. However at the same time, OCP has been swallowed up by the gigantic Japanese multi-national company – the Kanemitsu Corporation. Its chairman, Mr. Kanemitsu himself (Mako!) is putting considerable pressure on OCP’s CEO (Rip Torn!) to push through the urban pacification as Delta City is already way behind schedule. In charge of the pacification program is Paul McDaggett (John Castle – playing our evil Englishman for the movie), who leads a special heavily armed team known as Rehabs who ‘help’ the local citizens to buses which take them to their new homes and jobs, in a special place that is never specified. Of course what they actually do is drive wrecking balls through your house before you’ve even moved out, push around small children, hit old ladies with sticks, the usual stuff. One victim of this is youngster Nikko, who is separated from her family after her home is laid waste to by one of OCP’s wrecking balls. Roaming the wreckage of her home, she is pursued by a Rehab officer but is saved by a group of scruffy resistance fighters led by Bertha (CCH Pounder). Nikko gets to tag along on their secret mission to infiltrate a police armoury, and I get a sinking feeling. They reach the armoury to discover, OH NO! An ED 209! Luckily for them, Nikko’s KENNY GENES kick in at just the right moment as she simply runs up to ED 209, plugs her laptop into him, and reprograms him! Thank god for Kenn- I mean Kikko! Using ED 209 to shoot at the police that arrive without hurting any of them the rebels escape, even escaping from crack cop Lewis (Nancy Allen) until, THANK GOD, here’s Robocop! He’s in close pursuit of the resistance people, until he hears that Lewis is stranded with two other cops and the lead guy from Frankenhooker and they’re in Splatter Punk territory!

Robocop doesn’t arrive quick enough to save the Frankenhooker guy, but with the help of his new gun attachment, he fends the freakish Splatter Punks off. The Splatter Punks are either fans of the Misfits or rejects from Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video who babble incoherently like their schooling consisted of bad sci-fi novels and Beavis and Butthead. Robocop’s big machine gun attachment looks impressive, but spraying bullets everywhere with it only seems to kill about three people. Plus there’s something wrong with Robocop’s voice, probably because he’s not played by Peter Weller anymore, but Robert Burke. Two punks attempt to set Robocop on fire, but he douses himself using a shop’s sprinkler system, and arrests them. Having made their getaway, Nikko and the rebels plant their weapons in a secret location and help co-ordinate a shelter for people wishing to escape the Rehabs, setting up camp in a church. After nearly getting run over by Lewis and Robocop, Kikko runs into the church while Robocop records the scene for no apparent reason other than to further the plot later on. OCP is pissed that Robocop broke off his chase of the resisters and went off to save Lewis, and so a representative demands that Dr. Lazarus, the oddly named woman in charge of Robocop’s maintenance, must wipe all of Robocop’s memories and thus taking away his ‘humanity’ (news flash – Robert Burke already did). Of course the spunky Dr. Lazarus does no such thing and Robocop is off again, going back to that church he saw Nikko going into. Lewis tags along but decides not to take her body armour because she’s off duty, heh heh heh. Unfortunately not long after their arrival at the church, McDaggett and his men show up, and in the attack that follows Lewis is shot and killed! WHOO HOO!!! Robocop, hurt by a grenade, decides to go with the rebels and help the resistance, but the odds are stacked against them, especially as the Kanemitsu corporation is sending Otomo – a cowboy boot-wearing ninja cyborg!

Yuck, where to start with this mess? By 1993 when this came out, I think its safe to say that interest in Robocop had been more or less burnt out. This was made worse by the fact the film itself saw many delays, filming actually taking place the year after Robocop 2 had come out, 1991. When a film sits in limbo for so long that’s never a good sign, and when it finally came out it was a great disappointment both critically and financially. First and foremost, the violence has been toned down considerably to appeal to a wider audience after the relative mainstream success Robocop had seen. This is a largely bloodless affair with only a handful of deaths, plus they introduce an irritating Kenny character to appeal to the kidz, but there was still too much shooting and swearing to get this a low enough rating to make a the Kenny’s inclusion worth anything. What we’re stuck with is a film that shies away from any over-the-top violence, something which got the original so much attention in the first place, and having an incredibly irritating child character who, like any other Kenny, plays far too big a role in the plot. Nikko, this film’s magical Kenny, has the power to hack into robots and reprogram them, stand directly in the gunfire from a large group of men without getting even a scratch, can find a tracking beacon on Robocop instantly despite having never been in his presence before, can influence the decisions made my the leaders of the resistance fighters, she can hack into the main OCP building’s surveillance camera system, and can also negotiate her way up many floors in the same huge building through the ventilation ducts. Is it any wonder I yelled “DIE KENNY!” at the screen every ten minutes or so? Nearly as bad is Robocop himself, who is a sorry excuse of the character Peter Weller played so well. Robert Burke went on record saying that he felt he put his own spin on the Robocop character and he certainly did – he made him reeeaaaaaalllllly boring, well done Robbie! Burke may have looked quite similar to Weller when the helmet was taken off, but Burke brings none of the touches of character that Weller did and has more in common with Arnie’s T101 in Terminator 2 only with worse writing, which makes an incredibly forced sentimental scene later in the film between Nikko and Robocop all the more excruciating.

The story itself is also open to criticism, in that it just doesn’t sound plausible. This could be a fault of the other two films also, but the city in Detroit is almost portrayed as a world apart from the rest of the United States. Though I know little about American politics, or how they would change in the near future, the idea that a corporation can basically own an entire city and run it like some sort of commercial dictatorship seemingly without any resistance from the country’s government seems a tad far-fetched. As part of a parody of the overriding commercial aspects of modern society perhaps it would have worked, but here no such justification is to be found, nor do we get any explanation for where the people are taken by the Rehabs and their buses, they just hop on and disappear. While more focused than the first sequel, the plot just never seems to get going, no sympathy is created for any of the characters which would make you care if they lived or died, the villains are dreary and one-dimensional, the action is flat and unspectacular, and they couldn’t even make the cowboy boot-wearing ninja cyborgs interesting! The cast pretty much coasts through each scene with little conviction, Rip Torn does his usual ham job but when he’s the actor who stands out the most you know your film is in trouble. Even the attempts to give Robocop some gimmicky extras fail to excite, his gun attachment looks good in theory but as this is trying to appeal to younger people, he barely actually manages to kill anybody with it! Robocop gets a rocket pack too which, perhaps due to budget constraints, doesn’t really get put to all that much use either. The writing is clearly to blame for this film’s many shortcomings, the ridiculous situations the Kenny gets into, the inept handling of Robocop’s struggle with his humanity, the total misuse of the ‘Mediabreak’ clips, the lack of any believability or association with the characters – the whole thing smacks of lazy writing designed to cash in on the cyborg crime fighter and is forcing me to use far too many commas. Sad thing is, by delaying this film for nearly two years probably due to embarrassment over how awful it is, they totally missed the boat and made this clunker’s existence even more difficult to justify.

Robocop has gone the same way as many other film franchises, once the makers of the original are out of the picture, those continuing it proceed to forget the whole point of the source material, and seeing the potential money coming their way just throw out whatever crap they can and hope for the best. Robocop 3 was the final nail in the coffin, unfortunately it would be later dug back up, its rotting corpse paraded around in a failed TV series and a few TV movies. Murphy deserved much better.