ROBOCOP 2

   Film (1990). Orion. Dir Irvin Kershner, starring Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Belinda Bauer, Daniel O'Herlihy, Tom Noonan. Screenplay Frank MILLER, Walon Green from a story by Miller. 116 mins. Colour.

   Dismissed by most critics as an unimaginative retread of ROBOCOP, R2 nevertheless has merits. Its narrative clarity and dash, which deliver a vision of future Detroit as one of the deeper circles of Hell, a sort of DANTE-meets- DCCOMICS, are a credit to the partnership of director Kershner (who made The EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) and screenwriter Miller (who wrote and illustrated the Batman GRAPHIC NOVEL The Dark Knight Returns (graph 1986)). These qualities partially redeem R2's simplistic repetition of the previous film's thematic concerns (anti-capitalism, anti-liberalism, casual slaughter and lots of cynicism about tv news coverage) in a story where the good CYBORG cop (Weller) is again pitted against the evil corporation (privatizing the police force and about to do likewise to City Hall) and their new, drug-crazed cyborg killer. Rob Bottin's cyborgdesigns are appropriately grotesque.

   PN