Pointlessly grotesque. 

-0 mallards/5

-Seann

In keeping with the tradition of not watching prequels if assigned a sequel, I did not refresh my memory on the lore of Robocop. I did not re-watch Robocop (1987), nor did I watch for the first time Robocop 2 (1990). Luckily, I don’t think anything was lost from my lack of familiarity, as Robocop 3 (1993) could not possibly have made sense even if I was a Robocop lore expert. Interestingly, though the first three came out consistently three years apart from one another, Robocop 4 did not come out until 2014! My theory is that this movie was so bad that they had to put Robocop on ice for 20 years. 

I’ve done something now that I try to avoid doing in my reviews usually, which is hint at my opinions of the movie before discussing both good and bad aspects. I’m honestly not too sure how much I can write about the good aspects of this film because, quite frankly, there really aren’t any. Not only was this movie likely bad when it came out(I know it was, in fact, because it was almost universally panned upon release), but it’s a movie focused on social unrest, a corrupt police/detention force, and a rebel group fighting for their human rights. Does that sound like something applicable to the world today? Of course it does, and in Robocop 3 (1993), which side are we rooting for? I suppose the creators avoided the obvious worst answer of the corporate psychopaths by simply obfuscating the question (and plot) altogether.

 It’s hard to know where to start describing this movie. The dynamics between the groups are unclear and change at the whims of the script with seemingly no indication of a change in motive or strategy. There’s essentially four groups: OCP (the unquestionably evil corporation), the Splatterpunks (the questionably anarchic street gang-esque group that dress like Billy Idol groupies), the Detroit Police (Manichean alignment unclear), and the small gang of rebels we follow (bumbling fools who seem to fail upwards at every turn). Other than the cartoonishly evil mustache-twirling corporation, it’s impossible to articulate the desires, motivations, or goals of the other three groups. When these groups clash the biggest question that comes to mind is simply “why?” 

I’ll say one good thing about the script – it is occasionally funny, perhaps unintentionally. A couple of my favorite lines:

Two bad guys are in the bad guy secret lair (it’s in the police department HQ…I don’t know, either). One bad guy holds up a cigarette and asks the other ‘Hey, do you got a light?’ Robocop suddenly breaks down the door to the secret lair and exclaims ‘I can help with that!’ before engaging his flamethrower and setting the lair ablaze. I feel like the writers thought this would be a badass moment, as opposed to a cheesy one, but maybe I should give them the benefit of the doubt.

In another scene, the big evil bad guy is escaping via a city bus, that inexplicably has one of the evil henchmen driving it (I don’t know, either). Robocop chases him out to the street and sees an extravagantly dressed man verbally berating a provocatively dressed woman regarding money. Yes, you’ve got it. Robocop taps the gentleman on the shoulder and says “I must commandeer your vehicle for use by the Detroit Police Department” The man, exasperated, pulls out his switchblade knife, turns around and says ‘What is your problem, SUCKA?’ only to realize – oh my god! – it’s Robocop! He hands Robocop the keys to his pink Continental and apologizes. Robocop speeds off with strobe lights flashing in the car and the sound of a slow funk song on the radio. 

I think this is also an appropriate place to note some of the casting choices, which I personally enjoyed due to reasons completely unrelated to this film. Two small parts in the movie are played by actors Rip Torn and Stephen Root. Two men who would go on a decade later to be featured heavily in one of my favorite films of all time, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004). I type that with full conviction, and anyone who knows me personally will attest that the previous statement is absolutely factual. 

This is usually the point at which I’d write a little about what was bad in the movie, but that’s difficult, since it would essentially just be a recap of the entire thing. I think if I had to describe this film in a single word it would be “slapdash”. It’s clear that nothing in this movie was thought out, created with any sort of real care, or had any actual artistic or entertainment intent. They were trying to come out with a new Robocop movie as quickly as possible, and it shows. Unfortunately, this worked out well for them. The budget for this movie was $22 million, and it made $46 million at the box office. Truly baffling. I think if movie-goers could elect to get a refund if they disliked the movie in theaters, then this likely would have lost money. 

Here are a few of the biggest problems with this movie, listed off quickly, as each of them are in danger of becoming a paragraph of their own: as mentioned earlier, the plot is nebulous. The gunfights are head-scratchingly difficult to follow. The explosions are awful – they are clearly firecrackers from the fireworks store. The robocop suit looks ridiculous. The characters are flat. The child actor is unlikeable. The two death scenes are shockingly insincere. The two ‘twists’ are not only obvious from earlier events, but are totally inconsequential to the film as a whole. The dialogue is cringe-worthy more often than not. There is obvious xenophobia against the Japanese. There are multiple scenes where suicide is depicted and treated as a punchline. The movie ends and nothing at all has changed. The fighting sequences are uninteresting and odd. The most interesting characters in the movie die off-screen. It looks awful, as in the set design and cinematography are difficult to look at and are often straight up ugly.

Other than these issues, the film commits the biggest sin of 90’s action movies: it’s just uninteresting. 

Robocop 3 (1993) has a score of 4.2 out of 10 on IMDB, a Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer score of 18%, and a Letterboxd score of 2.1 out of 5. To me these scores are a bit inflated, especially the Letterboxd score. Reading some of the reviews, it seems like viewers created their own enjoyment from laughing at how poorly made it is, as opposed to the movie itself. To me, this movie’s budget disallows it from being classified alongside things like The Room or Troll 2 as a funny-because-it’s-bad movie. This movie is just bad, and made with a complete void of care –  and there’s nothing funny about that. 

-1 mallard/5

-Maxwell