ROBOCOP (1987), ROBOCOP 2 (1990), ROBOCOP 3 (1993)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *good,* (2) *poor,* (3) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Though Robocop remains an iconic figure in the world of eighties action movies, the character’s importance stems almost totally from the first film. Most serial-characters of comparable popularity manage to please their audiences with more than just one installment of their adventures. Perhaps, because the first film is all about the hero discovering the truth behind his re-creation, subsequent extensions of the franchise didn’t really have much of anywhere to go, in contrast to serial film-characters like Mad Max and John Rambo—or even Universal’s Frankenstein Monster.

Victor Frankenstein turns a bunch of motley body-parts into a monstrous being with no past. In contrast, the villains of ROBOCOP, the myrmidons of the coyly named organization OCP, want to use the dead body of cop Alex Murphy to create a mindless cop-cyborg. Yet, despite having his flesh merged with countless mechanical enhancements, Murphy’s consciousness re-asserts itself. For Mary Shelley, it was important that her creator-scientist should bring forth a “new Adam” with a tabula rasa personality. For Paul Verhoeven and his writers, OCP represents a far more insidious threat to human individuality than Frankenstein ever did, and thus Murphy’s recrudescence is vital to the first installment of the Robocop saga.

The future-Detroit of the first ROBOCOP is a classic dystopia, divided between callous “haves” and brutal “have nots.” However, the two extremes are mediated, at least in Detroit, by the nobility of the Detroit police forces, who are alone capable of resisting all forms of crime, despite the attempts of OCP to control the COPs. Verhoeven, despite his Dutch background, apparently understood that many audiences still wanted to believe in the archetypes of the Old West, in this case that of “The Sheriff Who Cleans Up the Corrupt Town.” Neither Robocop, his primary partner Lewis (Nancy Allen), nor the other cops can totally reform a city as far gone as Detroit. But in such a dystopic world, even maintaining a temporary peace counts as a triumph of sorts.

The first film benefits in that it presents OCP in a spectrum of attitudes: some of the businessmen are just average assholes trying to make money with approved capitalistic tactics, and others are active criminals like Dick Jones (Ronny Cox), who actually teams up with violent terrorist Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith). These distinctions make it possible for Robocop to rage against at least part of the corporate machine, and to defeat the more extreme forms of societal breakdown. That said, another disadvantage of the hero is that in all three movies it proved rather difficult to match the lumbering robot-hero with opponents who could match him. In the first film, Robocop briefly contends with a larger mechanical adversary, but the robot ends up being defeated by its own inability to adapt to its environment.

By the conclusion of the first film, Murphy has more or less made his peace with being a cyborg policeman and leaving behind his previous identity as a man with a family. However, writers Frank Miller and Walon Green couldn’t leave that aspect of his identity alone, and so included a pointless scene in which Robocop has to tell his former wife that he’s not Alex Murphy, just a replica of the slain police officer. Thanks to the skill of the actors, this scene is far from the worst in ROBOCOP 2.

In the first film the civil government of Detroit is barely seen, but the second harps on the fact that the government is so incompetent that it’s due to be bought out by OCP. The script never establishes why the corporation wants the hassle of managing a city, aside from “It’s the Kind of Thing Evil People Do.” The CEO of OCP, again played by Daniel O’Herlihy, is more of an outright villain here, and this time he’s more directly involved in the quest for the completely controllable cyborg cop, giving psychologist Doctor Faxx (Belinda Bauer) complete authority over the project. This is a textbook example of a villain acting stupidly to benefit the plot. Faxx gets the brilliant idea to turn a career criminal—Cain, a drug kingpin captured by Robocop—into a justice-machine, trying to use the kingpin’s own drug-addiction in order to manipulate him as a robotoid creation. Other secondary villains—the buffoonish mayor of Detroit, a twelve-year-old drug dealer named Hob—are just as artificial in their evil and just as bereft of charisma. Aside from a decent climactic battle between Robocop and Cyborg-Cain, ROBOCOP 2 is almost a total loss.

ROBOCOP 3, in comparison, is like a breath of fresh air, even though one of the credited scripters was again Frank Miller, this time credited alongside director Fred Dekker. Allegedly Miller created two scripts, either of which could have been used to make ROBOCOP 2. Thus, it’s merely a coincidence that the third Robo-film seems to place a greater emphasis on humanity once again—though it doesn’t begin to equal the dystopic pleasures of the first film.

Rip Torn replaced the late O’Herlihy as the new head of OCP, and this time the evil corporation seems content on owning only a particular section in Detroit, rather than the whole city. OCP partners with a Japanese mega-corporation with the idea of creating a new super-city within Detroit, but to do so, the evildoers must move all the indigent people out of their chosen site. This time OCP decides to rely on human resources, mercenaries called “Rehabs,” who round up poor people and get them out of the way, usually by surreptitiously killing them. One little girl named Nikko escapes the Rehabs’ ruthless raid, and falls in with a group of resistance fighters, led by Bertha (CCH Pounder).

OCP’s influence is so pervasive that the regular cops are sidelined by Rehab activity, though Robocop and his partner Lewis still patrol the streets. The Rehab leader McDaggett kills Lewis, and Robocop, prevented from retaliation by his programming, only survives thanks to the help of the Resistance. The hero’s injuries are treated by a police department scientist with the fitting name of Lazarus, and eventually Robocop is given the ability to battle the Rehabs and save the disenfranchised people of Detroit.

The goodguy characters in ROBOCOP 3 are at least appealing on the base level, though none are especially memorable. The best is Nikko, a tech-head kid, has a fascination with Robocop reminiscent of the affection children showed for the Frankenstein Monster in the Universal series. On the downside, OCP’s Japanese partners send a couple of ninja-cyborgs to aid the Rehabs. Robocop faces one of these human-looking mechanical men and just barely defeats it, with the fight almost becoming comic as the ninja easily scores hits on the slow-moving robot-hero. After the defeat of McDaggett, it’s loosely implied that OCP’s corporate tyranny will be ended, though this seems to be something of a toss-off rather than a logical development. Despite #3 being at least fair compared to the execrable #2, #3 tanked at the box office and so was the last of the film-franchise for that period.