Vids I Dig 855: The Critical Drinker – After Hours: ‘RoboCop’, Featuring Danquish

Vids I Dig 606: Cartoonist Kayfabe: ‘Robocop’ Vs. ‘Terminator’ Vs. Frank Miller & Walt Simonson

Video Game Review: RoboCop 2 (Arcade)

I reviewed the first RoboCop arcade game awhile back and intended to review the sequels, as well, but that task fell down the memory poop chute.

Anyway, while playing my RetroPie, I came across this and was then reminded of the task I failed at. So I immediately fired this one up and then realized, I had never actually played it, even way back in the day.

The action and mechanics are pretty close to the first arcade game, except you are able to move up and down the ground area and it’s not like your stuck walking on a rail.

The graphics and sound quality are about the same and the game is actually fairly quick if you’re pretty good at it. But the learning curb isn’t steep and playing this through MAME, you never run out of quarters.

My only real gripe is that the jumping and shooting combo you need to use on the harder bosses is kind of wonky and annoying. Also, the bonus stages are kind of cool but pointless and somewhat tedious. If you can get anything close to a perfect score, you are the greatest gamer that ever lived.

Overall, not a bad followup to the first RoboCop arcade game but I still like its predecessor a bit more.

Rating: 6.25/10
Pairs well with: other side scrolling shooters and beat’em ups from the era.

Comic Review: The Complete Frank Miller RoboCop Omnibus

Published: December 7th, 2016
Written by: Frank Miller, Ed Brisson
Art by: Korkut Oztekin, Juan Jose Ryp
Based on: RoboCop by Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner

BOOM! Studios, 400 Pages

Review:

This collection is really just two stories, it is Frank Miller’s versions of RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3.

The comics here are adaptations of the screenplays that Miller wrote but went unused by the studio. However, there is a ton of stuff in these stories that were actually used in the final films. Also, I believe that these are reworked to a degree, as Ed Brisson cleaned up some of the writing and there are things that feel like homages to the two RoboCop sequels more than they were actually in Miller’s script. For instance, a cameo by the Kane robot from RoboCop 2 but with a different brain.

Overall, this was enjoyable but it was bogged down by mostly crappy art. I understand that this style may appeal to some and I think it was chosen because it had an ’80s outlaw comics feel to it but it wasn’t fluid, was often times hard to look at and understand and it put a halt on the narrative’s momentum quite a bit.

Additionally, this was so over the top and edgy boi cringe that I can see why Miller’s scripts were completely reworked and polished into something more palatable for the mainstream. And sure, RoboCop is an over the top, edgy movie for its time but this pushes the bar way too far. Miller seemed to have no restraint and went for shock value and absolute absurdity over writing anything that seemed to build off of the original film in a meaningful or logical way.

The tone is just wrong. I can see where Miller though it was right but these stories are really devoid of the humanity that made RoboCop a much better movie than it should have been.

I can’t say that this is a waste of time for hardcore RoboCop fans. It is at least interesting because it shows you what the sequel films could have been and both of these stories are better than the final film that was RoboCop 3. However, I’d put the final cinematic version of RoboCop 2 well above either of these strange and baffling tales.

Rating: 5.5/10
Pairs well with: the old Marvel RoboCop comics run.

Video Game Review: RoboCop (Arcade)

I used to love the hell out of this game whenever I’d see its cabinet glowing in the corner of my local arcade. I used to pump quarters into this thing like an old lady at a slot machine in Circus Circus. But I remember dropping serious coin and never being able to get very far.

Now that I can run this on MAME, I have infinite quarters, so I wanted to revisit it and play it all the way through.

I’ve got to say, this game is a beast. And I don’t mean that complimentary. Maybe there is a difficulty setting I can alter on MAME but you get overwhelmed by enemies and killed pretty damn quickly. It’s amazing how quick you get overwhelmed and really early in the game. Sure, I can keep continuing and I did but you only get one life and the continue screen freezes the gameplay action, bogging down the gameplay flow and your momentum. It’s kind of tedious, actually.

And hell, it’s been nearly three decade since I’ve played this and I could just suck really bad at it. But this era of arcade games are my cup of tea and I’m a pretty good player in most cases.

I still love the graphics and the game runs smooth as hell. The real high point is the music and the sound effects, which are top notch for this game’s generation.

It could have gotten more creative with boss battles, as you fight ED-209s a half dozen times and even fight two at the same time towards the end.

This isn’t too dissimilar from the Nintendo RoboCop game but it is harder and the levels feel more repetitious than its NES counterpart. For instance, for those familiar with the NES game, the City Hall level isn’t in this version.

All in all, this was fun to revisit but it’s insane difficulty made it a chore after the first ten minutes.

Rating: 6.75/10
Pairs well with: other side scrolling shooters from the era.

Film Review: RoboCop (2014)

Also known as: OmniCorp (fake working title)
Release Date: January 30th, 2014 (Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan)
Directed by: José Padilha
Written by: Joshua Zetumer, Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner, Nick Schenk
Based on: character by Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner
Music by: Pedro Bromfman
Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley, Jay Baruchel, Zach Grenier

Strike Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia Pictures, StudioCanal, 118 Minutes

Review:

“This, my friends, is the future of American justice. How many like Thomas King will pay for their crimes now that RoboCop is here? Yes, let’s not shy away from what this means, people. Men weren’t up to the task, but Alex Murphy, a robot cop, was.” – Pat Novak

I had no urge to see this when it came out, even if I was a big fan of the first two RoboCop films and a lot of the comic books since then. This looked terrible, boring and like every other shitty remake that’s trying to milk a classic without offering up anything new or entertaining.

I wasn’t wrong. This is exactly that.

The only reason I watched this is because I just revisited the original trilogy of films and if I could sit through RoboCop 3, I could at least try and sit through this. That being said, this is better than RoboCop 3 but that doesn’t really say much about the quality of this picture as the aforementioned movie is absolute dogshit.

The only thing that makes this movie a little bit palatable is the cast. I was kind of intrigued that this attracted so many high profile actors to it and they really are the best part of the film. Gary Oldman owned all of his scenes, Michael Keaton was neat as a baddie and Samuel Jackson was the most entertaining element in the entire picture.

Sadly, none of the charm from these three solid actors rubbed off on Joel Kinnaman, who was the main star and the one thing in the film that had to work if this movie wasn’t going to be a complete dud.

The problem is that there really wasn’t a difference between human Alex Murphy and RoboCop Alex Murphy because Kinnaman played this like a robot from start to finish. He was a charisma vacuum that sucked so hard that he drained the charisma out of the more talented actors around him. As good and emotionally effective as Abbie Cornish was as RoboCop’s wife, she was stifled by her co-star’s complete inability to play his role convincingly. It’s like a wrestling match where the guy getting beat up doesn’t sell for the wrestler doing all of his signature moves.

There are other problems as well.

For instance, there are no memorable action scenes. I guess the part where RoboCop storms OmniCorp and fights a bunch of ED-209s is the highlight but its really kind of forgettable. By comparison, the two times RoboCop confronts an ED-209 in the original film, it is more memorable than this. So maybe less is more? This film kind of Michael Bays it up with an over the top action sequence that doesn’t serve much of a purpose other than wrecking RoboCop’s armor so that he looks cooler for the final showdown.

Also, the emotional journey of Alex Murphy is confusing and really sloppy. It’s not portrayed in a fluid way and I think we’re just supposed to guess at his emotions as Kinnaman gives blank stares while flashbacks overtake his circuits. Every now and then a scientist explains what’s happening but we really didn’t need this in the first two films, as Peter Weller conveyed real emotion regardless of being a robot.

There also aren’t any clear cut villains in this in the same way that there were in the other films. Sure, you suspect that Michael Keaton is evil but there isn’t a “big evil” that you need to see vanquished like Clarence Boddicker, Dick Jones or Kane from the first two movies.

Also, Alex Murphy’s death in this is weak and completely lacks the effect that his death had in the original film. Which also means that I need to point out that this film also completely lacks any real violence. The first film had a huge impact because you believed that the world RoboCop inhabited was extremely dangerous.

There were no montages of RoboCop cleaning up the streets like we got in the first two films. Those were always important sequences that helped build the world RoboCop lived and worked in. I don’t see this new version of Detroit as dangerous at all.

I did like the intro to the film though, which saw a bunch of ED-209s and RoboCop-like drones deal with a terror threat in Tehran but this felt like it was ripped right from the first act of the video game Metal Gear Solid 4. Granted, I love that game so seeing what appeared to be an homage to it was kind of cool.

Ultimately, this was pretty much a pile of shit. I think most people agree with me, as there haven’t been sequels to this and the next RoboCop movie, which is currently entering production, is a direct sequel to the first film and ignores this snoozefest completely.

Rating: 4.75/10
Pairs well with: skim milk and cardboard.

Film Review: RoboCop 3 (1993)

Release Date: May 1st, 1993 (Japan)
Directed by: Fred Dekker
Written by: Frank Miller, Fred Dekker
Based on: characters by Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner
Music by: Basil Poledouris
Cast: Robert John Burke, Nancy Allen, Robert DoQui, Felton Perry, Rip Torn, Mako, John Castle, CCH Pounder, Stephen Root, Jeff Garlin, Shane Black, Bradley Whitford, Lee Arenberg, Daniel von Bargen

Orion Pictures, 104 Minutes

Review:

“Well, I gotta hand it to ya. What do they call ya? Murphy, is it?” – The CEO, “My friends call me Murphy. You call me… RoboCop.” – RoboCop

RoboCop 3 should not exist. Well, at least in the form that it does.

For one, Peter Weller left the series and Nancy Allen’s Lewis gets killed off pretty early on, leaving us with a movie mostly devoid of the actors and characters we’ve come to care about except for a few minor side ones like the the police sergeant and Johnson.

Not even Dan O’Herlihy came back to play the Old Man in charge of OCP. I guess his absence was explained by OCP being bought by a Japanese company. So instead of the great O’Herlihy, we got a bored looking Rip Torn as the new head of OCP. Johnson was still there though, even if he felt out of place hamming it up with new office buddies.

The story deals with a bunch of poor people getting violently thrown out of their homes so OCP can steal the land and build Delta City, which has been an overused plot point since the first movie. RoboCop catches feelings for the poor people, especially after meeting a four year-old girl that hacks ED-209s and watching Lewis get gunned down by a private military company hired by OCP. There’s also some terrible cyborg ninjas in this. Oh, and RoboCop gets a pointless gun arm and a lame as shit jetpack.

The special effects in this are laughably bad, even looked at within the context of the era this was made in. This is a much cheaper looking movie than RoboCop and RoboCop 2 by a wide margin. ED-209 looks about the same but I’m sure they just reused one of the robots from the first film. RoboCop himself is a new actor but he’s wearing Peter Weller’s suit, which was too short for the new actor and caused him a lot of pain.

RoboCop 3 is just one costly shitshow that has nothing redeeming hidden within it. I’ve only seen this one a few times but I’ve watched the first two at least a dozen times each. This is just really hard to sit through and pretty much a pointless film, overall.

Rating: 3.75/10
Pairs well with: the first two RoboCop movies but they’re far superior and I guess any bad RoboCop ripoffs with an extremely low budget, hokey effects and crappy acting.

Film Review: RoboCop 2 (1990)

Also known as: RoboCop II (working title)
Release Date: June 22nd, 1990
Directed by: Irvin Kershner
Written by: Frank Miller, Walon Green
Based on: characters by Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner
Music by: Leonard Rosenman
Cast: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O’Herlihy, Tom Noonan, Belinda Bauer, Gabriel Damon, Robert DoQui, Felton Perry, Willard E. Pugh, Stephen Lee, Frank Miller, John Glover, Fabiana Udenio, Mark Rolston, Patricia Charbonneau (uncredited)

Tobor Productions, Orion Pictures, 117 Minutes

Review:

“Sometimes we just have to start over, from scratch, to make things right, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to build a brand-new city where Detroit now stands – an example to the world.” – The Old Man

Do you remember that time that RoboCop showed up on a WCW pay-per-view to rescue Sting from the Four Horsemen? Well, that was a stunt to promote this movie. That being said, it would have been a better stunt to promote the third film, as this one wasn’t quite as cheesy as that terrible professional wrestling segment. Spoiler alert: the third movie is terrible but I’ll review that one at a later date.

RoboCop 2 is no RoboCop but it is still a pretty solid sequel, all things considered, and it is still to this day the second best RoboCop film.

Now this isn’t, by any means, a classic. It is, however, a pretty good example of a sequel that can expand on an already established mythos and expand on it in a new way, enriching the world these characters live in and giving us new material that isn’t simply just a retread of the already proven formula.

Peter Weller is still excellent and I was glad that we got to see more of him playing off of Nancy Allen. They have a nice chemistry, which existed in the first movie but didn’t really flourish until the end of it. Sadly, this would be the last time they’d share scenes together, as Weller dropped out of the series before RoboCop 3 was filmed.

The real scene stealer in this film is Tom Noonan, who just plays creepy bad guys so damn well. This was the first time that I remember seeing him but he went on to be one of my favorite character actors of his day. Although, the scenes with the young Gabriel Damon, who plays the child gangster Hob, were pretty f’n great too. The villains here aren’t as great as Kurtwood Smith and Ronny Cox in the first RoboCop but they are still fantastic foils and gave RoboCop two new types of threats that he didn’t face in the first movie.

I also liked the girl, Angie, and the top level henchman that looked like a cross between Joe Bob Briggs and Elvis.

Additionally, I love that Tom Noonan’s Cain is made into a new cyborg, appropriately called “RoboCop 2”. This was the first time that we got to see RoboCop fight a big villain that was similar to himself and not just a human meatbag. Granted, he has two run ins with ED-209 in the first film but those were relatively easy confrontations for him.

I liked that they really embraced the dark humor a bit more in this film too. The use of kids as legitimate juvenile delinquents in an almost post-apocalyptic Detroit was damn cool. Especially when I saw this as a kid.

A real standout for me though was Willard E. Pugh. I talked about him a bit when I reviewed the severely lackluster The Hills Have Eyes, Part 2 because he stood out in that film and was pretty funny and the same can be said here. In this film, he plays the mayor of Detroit and he’s just so enjoyable that it’s almost a crime that he didn’t come back for RoboCop 3. Other than this film, he is probably most famous for playing Trustus Jones in CB4.

My only real complaint about this film is that the score was all new. Basil Poledouris did not return so I guess they didn’t use his iconic themes. The score here is decent but it lacks the extra gravitas that the original RoboCop theme had. Poledouris would return for RoboCop 3, however.

RoboCop 2 is a sequel worthy of following its predecessor. It’s hard to capture lightning in a bottle twice, or so they say, but this was much better than other sequels to sci-fi classics.

Rating: 8.25/10
Pairs well with: the first RoboCop movie and the first two Terminator movies.

Film Review: RoboCop (1987)

Also known as: Robocop: The Future of Law Enforcement (script title)
Release Date: July 17th, 1987
Directed by: Paul Verhoeven, Monte Hellman (uncredited second-unit director)
Written by: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner
Music by: Basil Poledouris
Cast: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O’Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, Ray Wise, Robert DoQui, Felton Perry

Orion Pictures, 102 Minutes

Review:

“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me!” – RoboCop

I put off reviewing RoboCop for a long time on this site because it’s one of my all-time favorite movies and I wanted to save it for a rainy day. Well, the day wasn’t rainy but I was suffering from my almost annual mini cold that all the snowbirds bring down to Florida every January.

It is hard for me to talk about this film and not get overly excited about it, which certainly gives me a strong bias towards it and also taps into nostalgia and the possibility that I can’t be as objective, as I don’t care about a single flaw in the movie. But there really aren’t many, to be honest, and this was absolutely one of the best action movies of the ’80s and really, it’s better than almost every action movie now, 32 years later.

This is a film that just has the right kind of magic. It is lightning in a bottle and even though I like the first sequel, that film doesn’t come close to what director Paul Verhoeven did here. Plus, the script by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner was absolutely superb. But the one thing that really brings everything together is the stupendous score by Basil Poledouris. His work on the Conan films and its themes were wonderful. Poledouris worked his musical magic again and gave RoboCop one of the best themes of all-time and the score is pretty incredible, overall. They just don’t quite make movie music this good anymore and without it, I don’t know if the movie has the same sort of energy and spirit.

All of those elements I just mentioned, created a film where the tone was perfect for the story that they needed to tell. And all of these solid pieces coming together so well still doesn’t account for how great the cast was. I mean, RoboCop truly is a perfect storm of badass sci-fi action.

Peter Weller is RoboCop and it will always be the role he is most remembered for but he has such a long and rich career of amazing performances that it isn’t hard to understand how he was so good in this and how he gave a robotic character a real sense of humanity. You feel his emotion, his pain and it is impossible to not root for Alex Murphy a.k.a. RoboCop.

The villains in this were so damn good though. They were kind of terrifying to me, as a kid, but the impact of who and what they are is still strong and it isn’t lost in a film where there is some of that famous ’80s movie cheese. The bad guys are well written with strong dialogue but they were also well cast between Kurtwood Smith, who steals the show, Ronny Cox, Ray Wise and even Miguel Ferrer, who isn’t specifically a villain but he is a reckless yuppie piece of shit.

I love Dan O’Herlihy in just about everything I’ve seen him in. He was creepy as hell as the villain in Halloween III and on the flip side of the coin, he was absolutely lovable as Grig, the alien co-pilot in The Last Starfighter. This is my favorite role he’s ever played, however. He was great as the old man running OCP, the corporation that pretty much owns all of Detroit. I also love that he continued to play the role after this film.

RoboCop birthed a franchise. While no other movie in the series has lived up to this one, which is a really tall order, it still spawned comic books, video games, a cartoon, action figures, sequels, a live action TV show, TV movies and a remake nearly three decades later. In fact, there is another RoboCop film in development now.

Many ’80s films don’t age well and while this is very much an ’80s motion picture, it doesn’t feel dated in quite the same way as other similar films from the time. RoboCop doesn’t have a dull moment and none of it slows down, it’s just balls out action and super violence of the highest caliber. Even critics love it and this is the type of thing that critics loathe.

If you’ve never seen this film, you’ve done yourself a disservice.

Rating: 10/10
Pairs well with: the RoboCop sequels and the first two Terminator movies.

Comic Review: RoboCop vs. NixCop

Published: March, 1990 – April, 1990
Written by: Alan Grant
Art by: Lee Sullivan, Kim DeMulder, Steve White
Based on: Robocop by Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner

Marvel Comics, 46 Pages

Review:

When I was in fifth grade, I used to walk a mile or so down to the corner store in my small Florida neighborhood a few times a week to buy a slushie and some comic books. Usually my granmum would give me five bucks once or twice a week because she liked the fact that I was into comics and could easily read through a dozen per day. That corner store is where I came across Marvel’s RoboCop series, which started a few months before Robocop 2 hit theaters.

This story arc is covered in the first two issues of that series. It’s not officially called RoboCop vs. NixCop. Issue #1 was called Kombat Zone and issue #2 was called Murphy’s Law. Even though they were single issues, they form a two issue arc pitting RoboCop against the new deadly NixCops from OCP’s rival corporation NixCo.

Marvel’s RoboCop was a violent and very action packed series, which is what I loved about it at 11 years-old. It also seemed to be in a dirtier, grittier Detroit from the films and it had more advanced technology like hoverbikes and floating trash droids. Detroit in the comics felt more like the Los Angeles in Blade Runner than the Detroit of RoboCop. But that was kind of cool and I don’t think I really noticed it back in 1990.

This was really fun to revisit for me because I hadn’t read this in well over twenty years but I did read these issues a lot in the early ’90s. I thought the villainous NixCops were cool and I liked the idea of an evil RoboCop that was closer to the actual RoboCop than the ED-209s or Cain from RoboCop 2. I also liked how OCP had a rival company that was worse than they were.

While this is far from a great comic, it is still very good and better than I thought it would be. I guess I had good taste at 11.

Rating: 6.75/10
Pairs well with: the other Marvel RoboCop stories after this, as well as DC Comics Cops series (based off of the sci-fi cartoon and not the reality series).