ROBOCOP COLLECTION DVD

ROBOCOP

Starring: Peter Weller, Ronnie Cox, Nancy Allen, Kurtwood Smith
Director: Paul Verthoeven
Running time: 102 mins
Certificate: 18

Alex Murphy joins the Detroit city police force on a transfer from his normal, quiet suburban department. Now, he’s in a place where crime overpowers good, and violence and evil controls major corporations. While on a routine patrol, Murphy becomes the 32nd good cop to die on the streets but is then resurrected ironically by the same corporation who put him to death. He is now OCP's RoboCop, and all he knows is how to protect the lives of the innocent and “uphold the law”.

If you don’t know the old story by now, you probably never will. RoboCop is the all time classic cyborg cop movie. Peter Weller was more or less unheard of before this film, and with the perfectly meant-to-be rigid performance he delivered, he deserves to have made the millions he made from this movie. It never seems cliche, even though it puts you in a position where you think it might be, and with the dynamic, violent, indifferent personality RoboCop emulates, he instantly erupts on screen as an icon.

You feel sorry for this robot as you once did for E.T. Afterall, the poor guys only trying to save lives. This box set is a God send, at least it would’ve been if the other films hadn’t sucked so bad, but we’ll get on to those in a minute. The extra features are generously feature packed, with even more grusome scenes and some insightful yet incredibly watchable featurettes, it’s a wonder this disc hasn’t been released before. It truely is a sci-fi classic that can be watched by anyone. The plot isn’t too thick, but yet still avoids treating you like your dumb. The only concern arises from the two rather terrifying newscasters who start and end the film. Honestly, their smiles have kept me up at night.

“Flesh and Steel” featurette; Shooting RoboCop featurette; Making RoboCop featurette; Director and writer commentary; Storyboard comparison; Deleated scenes; Trailers; Still gallery; Scene selection.

ROBOCOP 2

Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Tom Noonan
Director: Irvin Kersher
Running time: 117 mins
Certificate: 15

RoboCop has been serving justice just as well as he did when we last saw him. However, with the OCP Corporation always hungary for more blood, destruction, mayhem and madness...sorry, I mean “protecting the innocent”, it was only a small matter of time before they wanted to replace good old RoboCop witha newer model. Murphy, unaware of these new plans, is facing a battle of street drugs. He has to try and wipe out the new drug called Nuke, and does so by killing the band of suppliers stalking the streets. When Murphy kills the gang leader, Cane, he is contributed to the RoboCop rebuilding program, with dangerous and disasterous consequences.

Of course, before you even see this film, you’re slight suspicious of it’s quality because...well, it’s a sequel. A number of sequels have actually been very good, surprising the audience with their unexpected quality. RoboCop is not one of these. Although the great Peter Weller is still on the scene, original director Verhoeven is not, and even though this doesn’t make the film absolutely rubbish, it definately contributes to it being a disappointment. It’s a good storyline, and should have worked, but it just isn’t the same. There are some classic RoboCop moments, with the metal cop cracking a few jokes unwittingly, but these come few and far between, and seem unplanned. With nothing really solid to compliment the DVDs special features facility, RoboCop 2 is a forgotten movie that appears to want to finish itself off. If you think it can’t get worse though, you’re very wrong...

Theatrical trailer, multilingual subtitles, scene selection.

ROBOCOP 3

Starring: Robert John Burke, Rip Torn
Director: Fred Dekker
Running time: 100 mins
Certificate: 15

RoboCop is now owned by a huge Japanese company, who have plans to build a new, ultra modernised city over the now American cess pool Detroit. However, to do this they must first evict the population of the decrepid city. RoboCop almost banishes himself to the rebel underground society, where a number of events culminates in an “immense” battle between RoboCop and an android ninja...

This film is awful. Where is Peter Weller you ask? Well, he didn’t want to be involved in a second sequel, and neither did the original writers. Even the studio were pretty much broke when they made it, explaining the rehashed action sequences stolen from other films. The money flow trouble probably also contributed to it’s late release. It sat on a shelf somewhere for two years before finally being released in ‘93, and the company really shouldn’t have bothered. With no features with any credibility, and a totally lasped idea, this is by FAR, the most worthless third film you are ever likely to see. Killing all the respect I had for Rip Torn, this film really just bargain basement stuff.

Trailer

Overall Box Set

Guest Review by Jay Em


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