Hello, My name is Nick (Maza is just a nickname I earned some time ago) and I am from Greece.
I li...
Hello, My name is Nick (Maza is just a nickname I earned some time ago) and I am from Greece.
I like writing opinions about RPG books and I am also experimenting with other opinion sites
Member since:30.07.2005
Reviews:18
Members who trust:4
ROBOCOP 3 is not a tough movie to review. You can take the easy way out and just say, "It sucked," or in hubcap boy's case, "It's gay.". The original had heart, the sequel was made for kids, but still, it was violent.. This one? Oh man.
Robert John Burke is likable and fun to cheer for as Murphy, but the absence of Peter Weller is evident. Frank Miller's script is much more focused than the original -- there's a good guy and a bad guy. But then again, that makes it, just another movie made for the masses. There are some lame new robo-toys, such as Murphy's arm cannon and his jet pack. And Jill Hennessy is lively as Dr. Marie Lazarus. The action sequences are a bit on the bland side and impossibly uninspired. The original budget has been lowered and this is evident throughout the movie.
On it's own it could barely be decent, but compared to the original "RoboCop", it doesn't quite measure up. Robert Burke is really very good, and his voice, movements, and style, despite being different, are easily accepted as Peter Weller's replacement. But the character has been downgraded. The tragic side of the character has been forgotten, and his humanity within the machine is only given lip service and used as a plot device (used to convince Dr. Lazarus to come to Murphy's aid). RoboCop is no less likable, but in this film, he's just a wisecracking action hero, and not the tragic figure of the first movie.
Nancy Allen does not fare well in this movie. Her character is used as a tool for motivation; making Murphy want revenge for her death, and that seems shallow. She barely does anything in the film before she expires, surprisingly early on.
The film seems rather clear cut and squeaky clean, probably because the executives decided that the third installment should be a crowd pleaser, and pander to popular taste. Because the movie only wants to establish the bad guy and get on with it, the logic of the situation in this third movie doesn't quite hold together. People are being forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for Delta City. All well and good, but why are the police letting this happen? It's illegal; even if the cops went along with it, wouldn't the government step in? The MediaBreak segments lead us to believe that the evictions are being kept quiet, and the police are being misled, but this is only implied and dialogue seems to indicate Sgt. Reed knows that what is being done is wrong. However, he only challenges this when he actually has to do something. The motivations behind the police are confusing, and I'm not sure it's worth the thinking that the audience must go through when watching this film.
The action is almost fun. An early sequence has RoboCop drive his car off of a street and descend to a lower street, where he gets out and promptly blast the bad guys away, and, in a lovely moment, catches a bullet just before it hits Ann Lewis in the face. But there's no impact, no weight to the action, because it's so clean. Again, pandering to popular taste, and not staying true to the gritty action of the original.
At the end of the movie, I found myself greatly disappointed. Have the people responsible for the evictions been punished? I'm not sure, but I suppose with OCP's stock at a flat zero, anyone involved will be having serious financial problems. I guess the good guys won, but I couldn't swear to it.
This film wallows in mediocrity, but is not downright awful, unlike ROBOCOP 2 which was watchable. It's the way it is because the suits just wanted a standard, by the numbers action/adventure with RoboCop in it. It's so-so, and it's probably best that "RoboCop: PD" dismissed it.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Re-rated based on Ciao's insistence that such reviews are no longer considered "Off Topic"
temporalbandit 14.04.2006 03:09
Not one I'll be rushing out to buy, then....
Soho_Black 30.12.2005 16:21
I see you've posted this as a DVD review, but you've not mentioned the DVD. Are there any extras? If so, what are they and are they any good? If you add to this, or if you change it to be posted as a "Film Only" review, please let me know and I'll re-rate.
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