Manhunter (1986)

Director: Michael Mann

Cast: William Petersen, Tom Noonan, Dennis Farina, Brian Cox

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. For years it was a curiosity: the Hannibal Lecter movie without Anthony Hopkins. However, I think I may have only come around to it after Hopkins last turn at the role, in Red Dragon (2002).

I had intended to wait to revisit this film until COVID got a little bit better and I could share it with a friend who is a confirmed Hannibal-phile (I think they prefer to be called Fannibals), but had never seen the film. COVID still rages, and I am right on the cusp of finally catching up on my to-watch DVDs... Something had to give. Sorry, pal... I’m totally fine to watch the movie again when we’re all on the other side of this. Damn virus...

Did I Like It: Many people love this film deeply, prizing it above The Silence of the Lambs (1991). There’s a lot to love about the movie, but I ultimately think that its strengths are tied to the source material. Even Brett Ratner couldn’t screw up this story. The loose adaptation in the recent TV series is some of the best television of the last ten years. This movie has the happiest, for lack of a better term, ending of all three adaptations, and that is just part of where it suffers relative to the other versions.

Here, though, I think the worst of Mann’s instincts got the better of him. The film is so aggressively fashionable and stylized that the film has no life outside of the 1980s. From the production design all through the music choices (“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” anyone?) the film eschews any of the gothic trappings of the source material and is content to be just another serial killer movie with a dopey title.

Tom Noonan’s performance as Francis Dollarhyde doesn’t bring out the twisted, horrible sympathy of the character, and is just another aloof ‘80s weirdo in a movie filled to the brim with them. William Petersen’s attempt at a Will Graham is simply too histrionic in his meditations to be believable. Brian Cox, however, does bring a pugnacious irritation to Lecter (Lecktor in this film, for reasons passing any understanding) that only hints to the horrors at his core. It’s the most reserved version of the character, and the only thing to recommend it over others, not to take anything away from Hopkins or Mikkelsen.

Robocop 2 (1990)

Director: Irvin Kershner

Cast: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Daniel O’Herlihy, Tom Noonan

Have I Seen It Before?: A number of times, and usually under protest. More on that later. One memorable screening of the film took plaace on a stormy night in December 2007. People in the area will remember the massive ice storm that made mincemeat out of my town that month. I popped in my DVD of the film the night of that storm. The power went out and stayed that way for the better part of a week to get the power back. After I returned to my apartment from the holidays, it was 2008 before I could put my life back together…

Er… I mean, finish watching the movie.

Did I like it?: Not unlike the flood of Prime Directives that waylay Robo (Weller, in his final appearance in the role; he fled like the R-rating did from the series) in the second act, this film is only a list of ideas, at best.

There are those aforementioned Prime Directives. By implying that nay degree of social consciousness would make policework impossible, the film certainly ages itself, but it’s an interesting commentary (if no less problematic) on the action movies of the era.  People wonder how Frank Miller became such a fascist nutjob over the years, but the seeds were even here, in his mangled screenplay.

The notion that OCP is struggling just as much as the filmmakers in their efforts to make a newer, better Robocop is more meta commentary than Kershner or Miller probably intended, but it still stands.

The film even maintains the absurd television commercials and satire of the original. While the Media Break sequences aren’t quite as sharp here, the sequence where a little league team has its depraved charms. It’s sad that when this one was nowhere near as successful as the original, the various rights holders to the property over the years missed the lesson, and damned the future of law enforcement to the limbo that is PG-13 to this day.

But none of it comes together in any kind of a satisfying package. The original film is so steeped in Campbellian hero myth that it can’t help but stand the test of time. This falls flat. There is no vision here, just a checklist. Irvin Kershner had wild success with Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), so when Orion needed a sequel, he was the guy to bring in. He never directed another feature after this. The most baffling element of the film is Leonard Rosenman’s score. He must have been on some list due to his work on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), but this is such a complete abandonment of the marches put in place by Basil Poledouris, that every time the choir (yes, choir) chants “ROBOCOP!” one can’t help but notice how far the series has gone off course. Even Robocop 3 (1993) managed to course-correct on that front.