Following the original Robocop movie, which is deservedly a classic, is a hard act to follow but I thought this film made a pretty good effort to do so.
The plot here is a bit more loosely defined - it mixes between a drug epidemic of "nuke", and also OCP's attempts to build a successor to Robocop. All of the same components are here but everything is a bit simpler, if anything. Robocop spent a good deal of the first movie grappling with his humanity, whereas other than a quick diversion at the start, this doesn't feature quite so much here. It's more of a straightforward fight with OCP's attempts to mess him up. The police are still straightforwardly the good guys here, the one exception is flagged up so heavily that it's impossible to miss. The memorable villain here is Cain, the dealer of the drug gangs distributing nuke, and I have to say I think his performance is massively underrated. His delusions of grandeur, weird philosophical statements and calm creepiness are really well done. His gang are straightforwardly loathsome, and you never feel much but contempt for Angie and Hob. OCP are more straightforwardly the villains here, and the Old Man (plus new character Dr Faxx) has moved much more towards being a straightforward supervillain. Johnson is perhaps the exception. He has become more Smithers-like, but as with the first film, he seems to be the one force for good in this film even if his motives are not pure, much like Bob Morton in the first film. The mayor of Detroit is an interesting nuanced character; he's a bit more like the OCP executives of the original as he considers ways to get the city out of the hole it's in.
The humour is still there, but it's much more in-your-face now. It is still genuinely funny, for instance when Robocop is reprogrammed by OCP, or OCP's early attempts at Robocop 2 (or the one-liners: "This could look bad for OCP Johnson!"), but there's not much subtlety there anymore. Neither is there with some aspects of the plot, and this is where it can sometimes start to feel a little too comic-book. Robocop's directives need resetting? No worries, he sorts that, somehow avoids damaging himself in the process and then functions as a policeman despite having no directives at all. Police in a long bitter strike? No worries, a quick talk from Robocop is enough to sort that out. Also, by this point, there is quite a lot of people standing in the open endlessly firing machineguns at quite obviously bulletproof entities, yet somehow not bothering to seek cover when they are fired back at. This is much the same as the original, but by now it's starting to get a bit old.
The violence this time somehow manages to not quite be so shocking. There is one sudden rather nasty scene somewhere in the middle, but otherwise, imagine most gunfights in movies you've seen of a police vs machines variety, and you'll get the idea. The plot does take a sudden and rather interesting twist about halfway through as OCP develop Robocop 2, and its own unpredictable behaviour is quite an interesting watch too, taking over as the ED209 equivalent from the original. The special effects still hold up pretty well. Overall, I think there is a bit to criticise about it, and it's not as good as the original, but this is still a pretty good sequel and worthy of the name Robocop. Recommended as a solid sequel.
