Robocop 3 (1993)

Director: Fred Dekker

Cast: Robert Burke, Nancy Allen, Jill Hennessy, Remy Ryan

Have I Seen it Before: Here’s the thing about Robocop 3. Imagine being around ten years old, and the only thing you want to watch is Robocop (1987). Notorious, sublimely violent Robocop. Sure, it gets broadcast on TV, but that’s like waiting for a lunar eclipse. There’s this movie, which delivers a… modicum of Robocop-ness in a package marked by the MPAA to get past the shrewdest of parental goalies. It’s not a good enough movie to own, but you’ll be damned if you didn’t rent it five or six times over the course of the 90s, dreaming of the day when both Mom and the MPAA would not hold you down, and you could have free reign over both the original and Robocop 2 (1990).

I have no trouble imagining that.

Did I Like It: It’s going to be impossible to say that anything other than the original Robocop is worth a damn, but the question is does this film deserve the hate it has.

Sure, the film’s ultimate mortal sin is that it tries to market itself to kids, shut out the original’s (and the sequel’s) visceral qualities, in exchange for a kid sidekick (Ryan) and a PG-13 rating. The same thing which allowed the movie to fly under the radar of the hyper-vigilant 90s parent defangs things.

Peter Weller leaves the role, knowing that practically anyone with a particular kind of chin can meet the studio’s requirement* for a poster, but throws away all of the thoughtful work toward making Murphy move like his body was replaced by chrome and servos.

But is it worse than Robocop 2? Here’s where the this review might become just a touch controversial: No, I think Robocop 2 is far, far worse. Yes, the first sequel has the begrudging participation of Weller, but that’s the only round in which the other film wins. Robocop 2 tries to ape the original with none of the soul or wit, each and every time I watch it (and I did re-watch it shortly after viewing this film again), it rings a little bit more hollow. This movie to imitates some of the beats in the original film, but manages to throw in some new shades as well. B-movie nonsense (Robocop versus an android ninja/samurai from Japan, anyone?) has some baser pleasures to behold, while Robocop and the Detroit Police Department actually helping poor people plays a lot more like wish fulfillment than it must have in the 90s.

In addition, Robocop 3 has one secret weapon which makes it at least attempt to feel more in line with its cinematic ancestor. Basil Poledouris, and when I find Leonard Rosenman’s score for Robocop 2 to be one of the worst scores for an action movie ever, the return of Poledouris’ march goes a long way to engendering at least some good will from me.

*Yes, Orion. The same studio which was hemorrhaging money at this point (less than a year out of their Best Picture win for The Silence of the Lambs (1991)), and had to leave the movie on a shelf for upwards of two years.

Night of the Creeps (1986)

Director: Fred Dekker

Cast: Jason Lively, Tom Atkins, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow

Have I Seen it Before: Never, indeed.

Did I Like It: There’s a through line between this film and Night of the Comet (1984), and not just because I’m watching them both in quick succession for Beyond the Cabin in the Woods, and not just because they’re both irreverent, youth-oriented zombie movies of the 1980s, although it’s probably a little bit that.

No, I’m struck by the fact that these are both two films which I enjoy far more in the first quarter than I do in the rest of the following film.

Now, that might read as a fairly damning statement, as I ultimately didn’t think much of Comet by the time the end credits rolled. Instead, I’m more struck by how much I was absolutely thoroughly enchanted by the section of this film which takes place in the 1950s, and I only merely really liked the larger meat of the film taking place in the “present” (1986).

That opening is pretty stellar, with a true embrace of the space operatic elements of B movies of the era brought me into the film singularly. I even made a note for the eventual Cabin episode where I hoped the whole thing would be in black and white.

But alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

And yet, I can’t dismiss the 80s sections of the films entirely. Chris (Lively) and Hooper (Marshall) are believable as nerds neither entirely hapless nor completely angelic. Atkins brings exactly what one expects from a Tom Atkins, and I’m pretty sure he is incapable of not understanding the assignment at hand. I enjoyed how the film largely eschews any sort of impulse to make Cynthia (Whitlow) neither a preternatural hero* nor a damsel in distress. Neither she nor Chris would make it out of that sorority house without the help of the other.

It all makes one lament the fact that director Fred Dekker largely couldn’t get ahead of the stink  of Robocop 3 (1993) to keep making feature length films.

*For the record, I have no trouble whatsoever with preternatural lady heroes. This counter-note is pleasantly unusual, is all.

The Monster Squad (1987)

Director: Fred Dekker

Cast: André Gower, Robby Kiger, Duncan Regehr, Stephen Macht

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. Where have I been hiding this whole time?

Did I like it?: Maybe not as much as I hoped I would, but it’s still packed with plenty of charm.

The film is surprising in a few ways starting out. First, who knew the guy who directed RoboCop 3 (1993) was capable of making anything even remotely watchable. The second is that while this film shamelessly trucks in the same milieu as The Goonies (1985), but manages to have characters who actually want something and something resembling a story.

One might blanche a little bit at the sour nature of the kids who we are supposed to root for, but as we are theoretically closer to the end of the era of South Park, if these children aren’t the sweet kids hoisted on us by Spielberg, that’s all right. Plenty of other 80s films don’t reach for any sort of enlightenment with their characters. Come to think of it, if the kids were a little nicer to each other, they would feel less real. I don’t remember other kids being nice when I was younger.

I know it’s going to sound like I’m the guy who walks out of Hamilton saying that it was pretty good, except for all the rapping, but maybe the kids were the weakest part? I would have loved a movie that featured the classic Universal monster lineup* making their way through the world of the 1980s. Who really cares about Colin Clive or Edward Van Sloan during the classic movies? Why make the film focus on them?

*For that matter, had the film been produced by Univerasal, we might have gotten the monsters in their more ubiquitous form, instead of something vaguely akin to those images.