Retrospective Film Review

RoboCop 2 (1990) • 30 Years Later

Cyborg law enforcer RoboCop returns to protect the citizens of old Detroit but faces a deadly challenge when a rogue OCP member secretly creates a new, evil RoboCop 2.

Are all (Robo)cops bastards? When I chose to do a retrospective on RoboCop 2, I thought nothing of this sequel to a classic: it was louder, flashier, and a lot dumber. But RoboCop 2 has become shockingly prescient in 2020, aside from the absence of actual cyborg policemen.

Returning to the near-future dystopic Detroit, ‘killed in action’ cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is still struggling against his programming as RoboCop. The mega-conglomerate Omni Consumer Products (OCP) is #defundingthepolice to buy the city wholesale, while cult leader Cain (Tom Noonan) has effectively already done so with the highly addictive street drug ‘Nuke’. RoboCop’s toughest battle will also include his own replacement, as OCP is trying to bottle lightning twice (a moment of meta-commentary?) to manufacture a superior ‘RoboCop 2’.