Cyberpunk Review » Robocop 3

May 3, 2006

Robocop 3

Movie Review By: SFAM

Year: 1993

Directed by: Fred Dekker

Written by: Frank Miller & Fred Dekker

IMDB Reference

Degree of Cyberpunk Visuals: Medium

Correlation to Cyberpunk Themes: Low

Key Cast Members:

  • RoboCop: Robert John Burke
  • Rating: 3 out of 10

    Robocop 3 screen capture

     

    Overview: The first Robocop movie was an absolutely terrific, innovative flick. Robocop 2 really sucked, but not as bad as Robocop 3. All pretense of putting together a decent movie goes away in Robocop 3. Peter Weller, who plays Robocop in the first two movies wisely skipped this piece of shit. The only remaining cast members from the first are the Police Captain, Officer Lewis (Nancy Allen), the stooge corporate dude, Johnson (Felton Perry). Of these, only Officer Lewis had any chance of carrying a decent amount of heft for the show, but she is prematurely bumped off without reason, and the other two are pretty much just caricatures of themselves. In short, Robocop 3 is a pure, low-budget trashy sellout made for 8-14 year-olds who were familiar with the G-rated series - the plot goes for the young genius hacker kid and ninja bad guy vice attempting to work up a real plot.

     

    Robocop 3 screen capture

     

    The Story: Like Robocop 2, OCP is still trying to create a massively expensive city in a place that only has the destitute poor. God knows why, as nobody will be able to afford ANYTHING created, but we’re just supposed to go with it. In this episode, we have the nasty Japanese buying up OCP and hiring a cheesy security firm to simply gather up all the poor people and ship them out to concentration camps. But Robocop doesn’t like this, and decides he no longer feels like obeying his prime directive that stops him from challenging OCP employees. Instead, he joins a ragtag resistance comprised of local yokels, the genius kid, and of course his sympathetic OCP scientist care taker. But wait! There’s more! The evil Japanese have sent a cyborg ninja to kill Robocop. Ohhhhhhh – you can just cut the tension with a plastic spoon!

     

    Robocop 3 screen capture

     

    The Bottom Line: Honestly, I have a hard time seeing how Frank Miller is in any way responsible for the screenplay for this piece of trash. It’s pretty sad to see the Robocop movies end in such a trashy way. Yes, there is another kiddie miniseries that follows this, but truly, Robocop should have stopped after the first. This franchise is the poster child for Hollywood fuckups. In thinking about it, they could have done quite a lot with the Robocop universe, and potentially even could have done interesting things with the original Robocop character. Instead, they choose the cheesy derivative path. This led to both less money and the painful death of the cash cow.

     

    ~See movies similar to this one~

    This post has been filed under 3 Star Movies, Man-machine Interface, B Cyberpunk Cinema, Cyberpunk movies from 1990 - 1999 by SFAM.

    Comments

    May 3, 2006

    Case said:

    I met Robert John Burke once. ‘Seemed like a really nice guy. That meeting was vastly more interesting than anything in this god-awful threequel (the plot of which, frighteningly enough, was originally going to be the plot for ROBOCOP). Yes, this series should have ended with the first film. I couldn’t really see the deeper messages in the first film working in any kind of franchise. Oh well…how long before we see ROBOCOP VS. TERMINATOR (which actually wasn’t too bad a mini-series)?

    SFAM said:

    Hi Case, do you mean the graphic novel series (Robocop vs Terminator)? As far as I know, there has only been a video game and graphic novel for that.

    Case said:

    Yes, the RVT graphic novel is what I meant. Since many of them are composed from mini-series, I tend to assume that they all are, which is way off the mark some of the time. Oh, and the video game wasn’t too bad, either.

    P.S.= When I said the plot for ROBOCOP 3 was originally intended for ROBOCOP, I meant Miller’s ROBOCOP 2. Oops…

    May 31, 2006

    Neuromancer said:

    It seems Uwe Boll is currently negotiating the license to do a fourth Robocop.
    Little is known about the storyline except it involves a shoot-out between Robocop and Pikachu at Castle Greyskull.

    SFAM said:

    I’m going to hope you’re kidding about the Robocop and Pikachu thing, but considering you’re talking about Uwe Boll, that’s not out of the bounds of possibility!

    June 29, 2006

    Alias said:

    QUIT RAGGIN’ ON ROBOCOP 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    SFAM said:

    Raggin? You mean you think it deserved 4 stars? Hmm, I disagree.

    December 6, 2006

    puppy said:

    movie 3 sucked balls so badly i died a little inside

    1. bad blue screen
    2. bad story
    3. bad acting (especially the dumb kid)
    4. original cast dying off…….why is ‘crossing jordan’ in the film?
    5. the new robocop can’t act, and when he tries to act like a robot when talking, he looks like his eating gravel.
    6. his voice and his face look shit.

    the loser who said don’t rag on robocop 3, watch the directors opinions in the first movie…..it had meaning eg. ‘murphy’ was like jesus who dies but gets resurrected

    movie 3 just looks like crap slap together

    December 7, 2006

    Mr. Roboto said:

    You know Hollywood; Once they see something that makes an assload of cash, they just jump in and apeshit the original looking to get rich quick. Worse yet, they just make sequels and prequels looking to make a complete franchise, and then a TV series or Saturday morning cartoon that couldn’t hold a candle to the original, not even to light a fart!

    All this week, Chicago based WGN is showing a movie series called Robocop: Prime Directives. I was flipping between tonight’s episode, Dark Justice, and The Biggest Loser, and from what I did see it was nothing to write home about. There was also a syndicated TV series that lasted about a year, then vanished.

    PLEASE! Somebody pull the plug already! At least give poor Murphy a proper send-off.

    December 12, 2006

    Sentinel said:

    ROBOCOP was GREAT! ROBOCOP 2 was quite good (esp the Cain robot)! ROBOCOP 3 was well…………………… CRAP!!!!!!!
    How can anyone say ROBOCOP 3 was any good?!
    Now the thought of a ROBOCOP V’s TERMINATOR film….. THAT would be GREAT!!!! (But make sure it is great)!

    December 15, 2006

    Carlos Olivera said:

    There’s a Robocop vs. Terminator video game? and a Robocop vs. The Terminator four-issue comic book but! as of November 2006 Sony (who now owns the Robocop franchise) cancelled plans for a Robocop remake. There’s a fanfilm with the same title, it can be seen on youtube.com. There’s already a sequel to it.

    January 16, 2007

    SFAM said:

    Hi Carlos, do you have the link to the youtube remake?

    January 30, 2007

    CARLOS OLIVERA said:

    visit TheArnoldFans.com, i got interested so i typed something in the search engine and it popped out.

    the news about the Robocop remake being cancelled can be found on wikipedia.com, i regularly read a lot of information there.. you’ll also find out that the plan to do a Deus Ex live-action movie was also cancelled.. here’s the good news: there’s an upcoming sequel to Appleseed (2004), John Woo is attached and will be tentatively released this year 2007! HAPPY NEW YEAR SFAM!

    January 31, 2007

    SFAM said:

    Cool! Thanks for the news, Carlos! Happy New Year!

    February 7, 2007

    sabrijano1983 said:

    for me this is the best film which i see.good work this is for me.you are the best.thank you

    August 31, 2007

    asad013 said:

    robocop 3 is not too bad the voice of robert sounds better with the helmet on but storline not as good as the 1st or second 1 id give it 4stars

    October 13, 2007

    Robo fan said:

    the sad fact is that all of you can sit around and talk trash, but what did you guys think was going to happen? First of all, parent groups bitch until movies change what they show. They know young people are going to see this, so they try to make the film makers change the movies its not so bad. Also, if you really look at the 3rd movie its very close to the first one. However you will never get as good as the first one, you know why? BECUAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST ONE. You can not always repeat how good the first one of any movie is because that one was the first that showed you this world that we all feel in the love with. Also, non of you are making movies, so before you talk shit, get off your ass and do better. Go make a better Robo film and find out how hard it is to make. Its easy to put this movie down. However one might say you just don’t have what it takes to watch a movie and just go with it. Really guys relax and remember its a movie about a guy that became a machine, if you can go with that, I think you can go with anything.

    July 19, 2008

    Dave said:

    Seriously, I just watched Robo 3 again after many years and just Googled “Robocop 3 crap” because that’s what it was. ANY comparison to the first 2 movies is just totally unjust. It’s obvious that it was just an extension cash-cow for the series from the beginning. The first two movies went into depth on the idea of the machine (Robocop) having human emotions and memories; (similar to “I, Robot”) while the 3rd was just purely a crappy shoot-em-up for 5-10 year olds. If you enjoyed it, consider yourself in the brainpower of that age group…

    March 19, 2009

    kobra said:

    1- The Frank Miller’s script was modified. Frank Miller can’t do a shit like this, ok.

    2- the ninjas rocks!!!

    October 5, 2009

    ROBOCOP CAIN said:

    wow coolio. hermosa rocks

    January 6, 2010

    Matt said:

    i agree with robo fan its just a movie and its not a new movie. I liked the movie and you have to use your imagination for these scfi movies

    March 27, 2011

    Aytakk said:

    Okay I’ve finally watched Robocop 3 after reading so many reviews trashing it. So I wasn’t expecting much.

    That said I actually liked it in spite of the flaws.

    After the first two movies the next logical step would have been OCP’s evacuation of Detroit. The Japanese buyout and the ninja cyborgs probably weren’t necessary (they could have built another Robocop-type machine or worked out the bugs in the ED-209s) but in a way they add to the dark future scenario. Corporate buyouts are common and Japan does have all the best high tech stuff. Plus you gotta love the mirror of the wall street crash with people jumping out of buildings/shooting themselves because they think the world is coming to an end.

    The new actor seemed out of place to begin with and most certainly was over-acting a lot of Robocop’s movements to the point it was comical but you suspend your disbelief and get into the movie. The kid hacing into stuff seemed very over the top as she’s just some kid displaced due to the evacuation. If she was simply there as part of the police armory raid instead of just happening to be there by chance it may have been more believable.

    Murphy’s partner dying was important to the plot. It forces Murphy to choose a side and gives him a personal investment into the situation. He promised to ‘get them for her’ and we know how duty-bound Robocop is. Scrubbing the 4th directive seemed a little obsolete given he scrubbed all the extra directives in the second movie but it only pops up when he tries to act against OCP so it sort of makes sense.

    There is plenty of gunfire and explosions but you don’t see people dying or being brutalised like in the first two movies. Is it really essential to the story to actually see all this stuff instead of having it implied off camera? I don’t think so. If anything it makes the movie more accessible to more people and its been done well before so trying to outdo it is pointless.

    Robocop’s upgrades seem a little silly to me but as the threat is rising they sort of make sense. I guess this means OCP came to their senses after the second movie and decided to upgrade because all new prototypes failed. So why of why didn’t they also upgrade the ED-209s? Would have been cool to see a few stomping around assisting the security forces and maybe some being hacked into to fight for the people too.

    The scene where the new reporter throws the paper is the air and asks ‘do they seriously think we buy this bullshit?’ when reporting on another Robocop rampage is great. We wish the media would do that and admit they are puppets to their controlling masters.

    Its not as good as the first two movies but I don’t think it was terrible either. If the aim of a movie is to entertain then it did that for me. I’ll give it 6/10 in spite of the flaws.

    For the record I have the Terminator vs Robocop comic series plus a couple of other Robocop and Terminator series by Dark Horse too. So yeah - I’m a fan.

    April 4, 2011

    the_bold_shagger said:

    i remember watching robocop as a kid,and there was a black guy they built to be another robocop and he fought the original robocop but in the end they were all buddies where did i see this because it wasnt in robocop 1,2 and av watched half way through the third and its not lookin likely that a big darki is gunna get robo’d the fuck up.

    April 25, 2011

    Mister Forth said:

    Whenever I watch part 2, it feels like an actual sequel. Part 3 doesn’t have that feeling. It is not a complete piece of crap, but it feels like they just didn’t feel the need to push themselves the way the other films did.

    May 21, 2011

    luka lazic said:

    good movie

    luka lazic said:

    film je dobar

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