Product Details

• Actors: John Glover, Belinda Bauer, Mario Machado, Leeza Gibbons, John Ingle
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Letterboxed, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: October 22, 1997
• Run Time: 117 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (109 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630507335X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,007 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Robocop 2" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Daring Dark Satire: Live Like A Machine, Die Like A Machine, August 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Robocop 2 (DVD)

In contrast to many other reviewers, I happen to think R2 has an astonishingly inventive script brimming with daring, dark satire. The satire is so dark however, that it challenges a viewer not to be merely "entertained", but enter into a dialogue with the film. I contend that R2 is in the tradition of such apocpalyptic satirical art as CLOCKWORK ORANGE and NAKED LUNCH which serve to warn humankind just where in hell its crazed heart may lead.

Unlike most mainstream Hollywood films, R2 is deeply critical of humanity and its resulting civilization -- starting with the harsh market-driven economy of winners and losers (it is no coincidence that both the drug trade and OCP bow to the same economic models). By depicting a world of such dire human/social affliction coupled with all the high-tech tools required to increase its profit (and anguish), R2 challenges the viewer to separate from this "humanity". Like the best satire, R2 exists to crack our rose-colored glasses, bloody our noses, and tell us what's wrong, so there is precious little "good" to root for in either old or new Detroit. What's at stake in R2 is simply keeping the flood of evil from drowning everything all at once.

The film's sharp satirical touches include: expanding the Reagan-era "privatizing" mania to that of OCP "owning" Detroit as a merciless send-up of free market philosophy; the 12-year old drug kingpin just a few tweaks from today's gun-toting teenaged gangbangers as a potent symbol for a suicidal civilization's nihilistic future; the telethon to "save" Detroit as a chilling parody of the fiscal/civil tensions between Democracy and Capitalism (in which, tellingly, the 12-year old drug dealer purchases Detroit's "freedom"); the designer drug, Nuke, as the corrupted escape-valve for society's traumatized, post-Ritalin citizens (and just wait until human genome research trickles down to the greed of the street); the domestication of Robocop into a platitude-whining ninny as a ridicule of pie-in-the-sky suburban values failing in a battlezone of urban realities (which the suburbanites' defection from the inner-city helped to create); and the Robocop 2 cyborg who sports a criminal mind determined as the best fit for our high-tech future. These and other barbs all serve to criticize society's faith that higher and higher technology will save us from human folly instead of high-tech being correctly seen as just the latest edition of that same human folly.

Yes, the script may superficially suffer from its demanding ambitions with perhaps one-too-many a sub-plot (screenwriter Frank Miller's graphic novel background pushes the envelope here), but R2's postcards-from-hell humor and prescient social criticism are the diamonds wrought from such risk. R2 is a wake-up call for a society increasingly divorced from nature: he who lives like a machine will die like a machine.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And now...a word on nutrition, July 6, 2005

By 

Inspector Gadget "Go Go Gadget Reviews" (On the trail of Doctor Claw) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RoboCop 2 (DVD)

Robocop 2 is probably the most under-rated and most harshly criticized sequel in history (tying with Predator 2, which came out the same year). Because of a few missing elements from the first and a slightly more cartoonish approach to the violence, the critics and public alike were not pleased and opinions and feelings toward the franchise nosedived with the just plain awful Robocop 3.

Don't con yourself out of a good movie though. Robocop 2 still has the same savage sense of humor, cynical social commentary and character pathos of the first film. It's a hyper-realistic vision of an America populated by gun-loving psychos, a democracy owned by big business and the poverty-stricken addicted to drugs dealt to them by peddlers believing themselves to be the second coming of Christ.

Far-fetched could be the typical way of describing it. Completely-over-the-top would be more appropriate. Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner chucks in as much sadistic violence, deafening gunfire, endless destruction and loss of human life that the film just begs you not to take it seriously.

Some of the blame was placed on writer Frank Miller for the film being more cartoonish than the original. I don't think this is very fair. I read Miller's original script when I was in high school and it is rather different and, dare I say, unfilmable. Robocop 2 himself was not Nuke Lord Caine, the psychotic hippie with delusions of Godhood. He was called Kong, a psychotic cop who pretty much killed everybody he came across. Sgt. Reed and the Old Man died and there wasn't much humor. Screenwriter Walon Green was hired to doctor the script and much of what appears on screen is actually his work. Frank Miller's original ideas are pretty much just left as the framework for the whole movie and some of his story was recycled into Robocop 3 (don't blame him for that one either). Miller was obviously upset with this but was still a good enough sport to appear in the film (keep a lookout for him playing Doctor Frank), though he vowed not to work in Hollywood again for fear of being taken advantage of. Until Robert Rodriguez promised to make good on his Sin City graphic novels.

Verhoven may be gone but Irvin Kershner tries hard to deliver the same mix mirth and magic and actually does get it right. Basil Poledouris' brooding score is also gone (it returns in Robocop 3) but new composer Leonard Rosenman creates a wonderfully heroic and upbeat theme that suits the film more than Poledouris' moody, tormented score to the first.

Filmed once again in Texas, Houston this time, you really have to feel for Peter Weller walking around in that Robosuit. It must have weighed a ton and he'd be sweating bucketloads inside. There is a particular scene in the film where Murphy is tortured into near-death/destruction that is very hard to watch. But it does lead to him getting a brand-new makeover and those crazy new directives put into his head. The bit where he lectures the Little League kids and scolds the youngsters playing by the leaky fire hydrant (after quoting some very suspicious philosophy) is hilarious.

Robocop 2 is a great movie. Despite problems with the script and story and some slightly dated stop-motion effects it's a brilliant sequel that lives up to expectations. Do listen to the nay-sayers. I don't know what kind of film they were expecting.

And thank you for not smoking!

The DVD is in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with eye-popping colors (check out the chrome of Robo's armor) and Dolby 5.1 sound. I am a little sad that there are no extras such as a commentary as I would really have liked to hear what Kershner has to say about the film. And there are deleted scenes that I know of that have Murphy visit his grave and some more details on why Caine is so weird.

Oh well. One can only hope that in the future...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lacks the bite of the first one, but still far better than the third..., December 16, 2005

By 

D. Colley "daz78" (England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RoboCop 2 (DVD)

The inevitable sequel is not as bad as some make out; though, compared with the original, it fails on all levels. Released with a surge of hype in 1989, this will fill only those who saw the first as a violent action picture, rather than the layered modern sci-fi it really is.

It's portrayal of a new drug culture offers nothing new, and seems pretty lazy and easy as a purpose to satirise. The villain, Cain, a sort of hippy throwback, seems a bit too much of a `superhero' villain (i.e. wacky, unconventional) to offer any gritty realism (unlike the first). Irvin Kershner, the director who gave us the most fulfilling Star Wars episode - The Empire Strikes Back, seems to lack the social and political bite that Verhoeven created with the first movie.

However, if you see the film in the right light - as a comic-book style movie, then ROBOCOP 2 is elevated somewhat. There are parts when satire does sparkle, for example, where Robocop/Murphy is `reprogrammed' and set back out onto the streets is a vicious swipe at OTT political correctness and liberalism (as the first movie took a swipe at conservatism and big business fascism).

The violence is not as brutal and realistic as the first one, but it is still far off the `children' friendly Robocop spin-offs that follow this movie.

News bulletins and faux advertisements return, but this time they feel too absurd and hokey, so instead of satirising modern western media, it simply parodies the adverts/news bulletins that where in the first film.

It isn't as bad as professional reviewers have said, so this may come across as two hours of full-on exciting action - though not much else.