Movie Review – RoboCop 3 (1993)

After the financial success of RoboCop 2, Hollywood still decided to pursue with another RoboCop sequel despite mixed to poor reviews of the second film.

RoboCop 3 was released in 1993.

This time around OCP is finally serious about destroying part of Detroit, Michigan, to make way for the construction of “Delta City.”  The police force runs into resistance from some of old Detroit’s residents, and it turns into a war between the people and police force.  RoboCop is caught in the middle as he’s programmed to follow his orders, yet he cannot harm innocent people.  To complicate the matter, OCP is now under the leadership of a Japanese company, and RoboCop isn’t the only sophisticated robot running around Detroit.

To add insult to injury, RoboCop 3 had its harsh language and graphic violence reduced so that the film would have a PG-13 rating, making it more appealing to families and younger audiences.  Both of the previous RoboCop films were rated R.

Directed by Fred Dekker, RoboCop 3 stars Robert John Burke in the title role of Alex Murphy / RoboCop.  Supporting him are Nancy Allen as Officer Anne Lewis, John Castle as Commander Paul McDaggett, Rip Torn as the president of OCP, Remy Ryan as Nikko Halloran, Felton Perry as OCP Vice President Donald Johnson, Jill Hennessy as Dr. Marie Lazarus, Robert DoQui as Sgt. Warren Reed, and Bradley Whitford as Jeffrey Fleck.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

RoboCop 3 begins with a television commercial advertising Delta City, a utopia-like city planned for development by Omni Consumer Products (OCP).  A news broadcast then tells us that OCP has been taken over by a Japanese company called Kanemitsu Corporation.  We’re then told about Detroit’s escalating levels of violence (just like in the previous two films), and OCP’s answer for it.  The answer this time is an armed force called Urban Rehabilitators (Rehabs).  Lead by Commander Paul McDaggett (John Castle), we’re told that the Rehabilitators are there to simply help the police force despite their heavy weapons and veteran combat troops fresh from the Amazon War.

But as we see, the Rehabilitators are also being used to serve eviction notices and physically remove people from their homes.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

The news footage ends and the Rehabilitators move into the Cadillac Heights area in Detroit to remove the residents.  Nikko Halloran (Remy Ryan) and her parents are both kicked out of their home and thrown outside with the other panicking residents.  As her parents are forced onto a bus for relocation, Nikko is able to run away and hide in the ruins of the decaying (and now vacant) buildings.  There’s further chaos as one of the residents fights back and uses a small bomb to destroy some of the OCP construction equipment.

Nikko is alone when she’s spotted by a couple of Rehab soldiers.  The little girl runs away and is grabbed and hauled inside of a van.  It turns out that the people in the van are actually part of a rebellion.  One of the rebels, Bixby Snyder (S. D. Nemeth), planted the bomb earlier.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

The van drives away from the soldiers and soon arrives at an OCP armory.  The rebels blast their way through an outer barricade, but waiting inside is an ED-209 security robot.  The ED-209 is armed and ready to kill all of them.  Fortunately, Nikko is a computer whiz, and she’s able to use her hacking skills and take command of the ED-209.  She uses the robot’s firepower to blast a whole into the armory.  The rebels are then able to grab a bunch of weapons.  When the police respond and finally arrive on sight, Nikko programs the ED-209 to fire at the police officers.  This gives them enough of a distraction to flee in their van.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

A bunch of Detroit police officers are in a donut shop when they hear a radio call about the robbery at the armory.  Officer Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen) is sent after the robbers along with two other cops.  They quickly spot the van and give chase on the streets of Detroit.

The rebels use a remote control to turn traffic lights green and cause a crash, successfully taking out two of the chasing police officers.  Lewis’s car ultimately hits some parked cars and is flipped.  It looks like the rebels are in the clear until a fourth police officer pursues their vehicle.  It’s RoboCop (Robert John Burke)!

Back at the crash scene at the traffic intersection, Anne Lewis and the two other cops are surrounded and attacked by armed street punks.  RoboCop hears the radio call for help and decides to abandon chasing the van in favor of saving his partner.  Sgt. Warren Reed (Robert DoQui) is angry with RoboCop giving up the pursuit as three other officers are responding to Lewis’s distress call, but there’s nothing that he can do.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

RoboCop crashes his police cruiser next to the other officers.  He then removes one of his hands and attaches a machine gun there in its place.  The police cyborg opens fire and kills most of the street punks.  He follows the last two punks to a hideout, but they fight back using flammable liquid and setting him on fire.  That doesn’t stop RoboCop and he arrests the punks.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

At OCP’s headquarters, The CEO of the company (Rip Torn) has a video conference call with Kanemitsu (Mako), the new boss of the company.  Kanemitsu is furious with the slow and costly way that OCP is being run as a company.  He informs the CEO that he is sending an agent to correct his failures.

The CEO meets with his executives and gives them an earful about the city turning into a war zone.  OCP Vice President Donald Johnson (Felton Perry) tries to assure him that it’s just a small resistance group responsible for the chaos, and they really don’t pose a significant threat.  Jeffrey Fleck (Bradley Whitford) promises to look into RoboCop and determine why the cyborg isn’t following its orders.

Commander McDaggett informs the CEO that he does not want RoboCop to be associated with his Urban Rehabilitators.  The CEO informs him that he has four days to clear the remaining people from Cadillac Heights, or the loans will be withdrawn and OCP will be ruined.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

At Kanemitsu World Headquarters we catch a glimpse of what they call Otomo, a ninja android.  Apparently this is the “agent” that Kanemitsu intends to send to Detroit to fix the problems with OCP and the rebellion.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

Back in Detroit at the police station, Dr. Marie Lazarus (Jill Hennessy) is the lead scientist in charge of RoboCop’s maintenance and programming.  Fleck is angry and informs Marie that RoboCop disobeyed a direct order.  She responds by telling Fleck that RoboCop most likely disobeyed with an order because he didn’t agree with it.  He made a decision, a judgment call.  Fleck seems rather upset that the cyborg is able to have feelings and memories, and he’s also able to make decisions in the field.  He orders Marie to erase RoboCop’s memories.

Officer Lewis arrives as RoboCop’s memories are played on the TVs.  Marie watches the images and sees both the true behavior of the Urban Rehabilitators along with Murphy’s personal memories.  It’s implied that she’s inspired by the images and chooses not to install a circuit that would block RoboCop’s memories and make him more predictable.

Sgt. Reed leads a briefing for the police officers and informs them about the rebels in Cadillac Heights.  He tells his fellow officers that the rebels are nothing more than terrorists, and they need to be either captured of killed.  RoboCop walks into the briefing, studies the images on the monitors, and then decides to head out.  Concerned that her partner isn’t acting correctly, Anne Lewis heads out with him.

They drive out to Cadillac Heights and return to the church that they passed earlier.  They enter the building and discover a bunch of people that are using it for shelter.  It’s actually part of the rebellion, but they show no danger to the police officers.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

Just then the Urban Rehabilitators also arrive and position themselves outside of the main entrance.  Anne and RoboCop step outside and Anne tries telling them that there are innocent people inside of the building.  Commander McDaggett doesn’t care.  He orders for the Rehabs to open fire, and Anne Lewis is hit by several bullets.  RoboCop fires back and is able to cause a distraction.  The rebels then provide cover fire as RoboCop carries the mortally wounded Anne Lewis into the church.  He places her on the altar and her last words are for RoboCop to, “Get them for me.”

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

As the Rehabs continue firing on the church and the rebels, the rebels head down through a secret underground passage.  They encourage RoboCop to go along with him.  The cyborg is heavily damaged though after taking a grenade to the chest.  After removing his tracking system, RoboCop is lead into the rebel’s secret headquarters.  RoboCop is dying and the rebels don’t have the skills to repair him.  He tells the rebels to find Dr. Lazarus.

Back at OCP, the company is in chaos after the death of police officer Anne Lewis and the disappearance of RoboCop.  The news broadcast makes it believe that RoboCop has gone rogue and is extremely dangerous.  This has caused a ripple effect through OCP and many people are losing their jobs.  Some of the employees are committing suicide by jumping out of their office windows.

The CEO is furious and Jeffrey Fleck is fired.  He pulls out his pistol and walks away.  Moments later we hear the report of a gunshot as he presumably commits suicide.  Meanwhile, OCP only has three days left to clear Cadillac Heights.  Johnson recommends hiring more Rehab officers to handle the problem, even recruiting them straight out of the police department.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

Nikko is able to infiltrate the police station and find Dr. Marie Lazarus.  She convinces her to bring her repair equipment so they can help fix RoboCop, Nikko’s idol.  Marie agrees to do so, and when she arrives at the compound and sees RoboCop’s poor condition, they immediately start working on him. At one point RoboCop receives a new mechanical heart.  Later, the fourth directive preventing him from opposing OCP officers is deleted.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

RoboCop makes a fully recovery.  When Nikko questions him about her parents, RoboCop searches the police files in his memory.  He discovers that her parents were killed instead of being relocated, and he does NOT tell Nikko this information.  Apparently OCP has found it to be much more efficient to simply kill the former residents of Cadillac Heights instead of giving them a new home along with new jobs.

Once his systems are fully operational, RoboCop remembers Anne Lewis’s message and decides to go after the Urban Rehabilitators.  Now it’s personal.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

RoboCop goes to the police station and attacks the Rehab officers.  He interrogates one of them and learns that McDaggett is at a motel in a sleazy part of town.  McDaggett is there to meet a rebel informant who sells out his group and gives away their secret location.  When RoboCop shoots his way into the hotel room, McDaggett grabs his gear and escapes out a window.  He then gets into an OCP bus and quickly drives away.  RoboCop takes a pimp’s car and gives chase.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

The two vehicles drive through the city, and McDaggett and RoboCop exchange gunfire.  Not even firing grenades at RoboCop’s car can stop it.  The chase finally ends when McDaggett throws money into the street and has children go after it, forming a human barricade.  This stops RoboCop and McDaggett gets away.

Back at the rebels’ headquarters, Urban Rehabilitator soldiers invade the place and start shooting.  Those rebels that aren’t killed are taken prisoner.  Marie is able to help Nikko climb into a hiding place before she’s captured and taken away by the soldiers.  Just like after the raid in Cadillac Heights, once again the young girl is alone.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

Douglas Johnson and Commander McDaggett go to the police station and inform Sgt. Reed that they’re going to need his police officers to join the Rehabs and fight the rebels in Cadillac Heights.  That’s the final straw.  Sgt. Reed refuses to help OCP any longer.  He and the other police officers quit the force, dropping their badges at the feet of the OCP men while walking out the door.

But this doesn’t stop McDaggett.  He recruits a gang of street punks to serve as soldiers in his personal army.

Nikko uses her stealth skills to infiltrate the police station holding the rebels that were recently captured.  She hacks into the video feeds and quickly locates Maria Lazarus.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

Sgt. Reed and the Detroit police officers arrive in Cadillac Heights.  Reed informs the residents what is about to happen with Command McDaggett and the Urban Rehabilitators.  He orders the women and children down to the basements, and then he deputizes the men.  All of them arm themselves and form a fortress there in the middle of the street.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

Meanwhile, RoboCop has returned to the rebels’ headquarters, but all of the people are gone.  Just as he’s figuring out what happened, RoboCop is attacked by the Otomo ninjabot.  The ninja robot uses his sword to chop off RoboCop’s left hand.  The ninjabot attacks again and RoboCop is knocked to the floor.  Just before the ninja robot can deliver a fatal blow, RoboCop attaches his machine run / grenade launcher to his left arm and fires a grenade into Otomo’s head, destroying the killer robot.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

In Cadillac Heights, the army of heavily armed street punks and the Rehabilitators attacks the fortified police force.  There’s a tremendous gun battle in the city as the two armies clash.

In the police station, Nikko is able to crawl through the air ducts and find Marie’s room.  She helps hack into the station’s transmitter so that Marie can make an emergency broadcast that goes to every television set in the metro area.  Marie warns the people what OCP is really doing and how they’re such an evil company.  Her information causes OCP’s stock value to plummet, sending it into financial ruin and effectively destroying the company.

RoboCop’s electrical system was damaged by the ninjabot, and he needs help to move.  There in the rebel base is a jet-pack that the rebels stole from the police armory earlier in the film.  In fact, the jet-pack was designed by Marie Lazarus, but it was never implemented by OCP.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

In Cadillac Heights, the police are about to be overrun by the Urban Rehabilitator army.  The Rehabs have brought forward a tank that’s going to crush the police’s barricade.  Suddenly RoboCop flies overhead with his jet-pack and he uses a rocket to destroy the OCP’s tank.  RoboCop then hovers over the OCP army and kills them all with his machine gun.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – (c) Orion Pictures / MGM

RoboCop then flies to the top of OCP’s headquarters building and crashes through a window.  Commander McDaggett and more of his men are there.  RoboCop wants to arrest him for the murder of Officer Anne Lewis.  Suddenly TWO more Otomo ninjabots appear in the room.  The OCP CEO, Johnson, and all of McDaggett’s security guards leave the room.  It’s RoboCop against the two ninjabots.  Just then Nikko and Marie find their way to the room and join the party.

The ninjabots knock RoboCop to the floor.  Nikko uses her computer to hack into the ninjabots programming.  Before they can kill RoboCop, Nikko has the ninjabots target each other.  Each ninja robot cuts off the other’s head, simultaneously destroying each other.

But that battle isn’t finished yet.

McDaggett informs everybody that each ninjabot has a bomb that has been trigger with a self-destruct sequence.  It’s only a matter of seconds before everything in the room is going to be obliterated.  RoboCop quickly puts on his jet-pack and fires the engines.  The flames hit McDaggett’s legs, immobilizing him.  The cyborg grabs Nikko and Marie and flies with them out of the building.  Seconds later the two bombs detonate and McDaggett is killed.

RoboCop 3 ends with Kanemitsu firing the CEO of OCP.  Kanemitsu then bows to RoboCop and shows his respect to the cyborg.

So is RoboCop 3 any good?

Nope.  Not by a long shot.

Like in RoboCop 2, this third film has some interesting ideas floating around there (such as a foreign company taking over OCP, and RoboCop’s interchangeable hand / machine gun), but the finished story is lousy, the acting is poor, and many of the special effects make this look like a made-for-TV type of film.  The finished product is simply terrible.

Perhaps the biggest question here is simply WHY?

Why do we care about a few people being kicked out of a run down neighborhood in a crime-infested city?  Yes, it’s technically their home, but is it really worth fighting for?  Why fight over a nasty part of the city when OCP is offering to move you to a new home and even have new jobs ready?

Anybody who knows anything about the history of Detroit knows that “white flight” has been occurring in the city since the race riots in the 1960s and later during the days of Mayor Coleman A. Young.  The residents have already proven that they’re more than willing to leave nasty parts of the city for greener pastures.  They’re not going to stick around in a very dangerous area, especially if they’re offered a new home and job in a safer part of the city.

This is the whole premise for this third RoboCop film.  Since a few people don’t want to leave their crappy homes (they *were* served eviction notices), they form a rebellion and fight against OCP.  This delays the company and costs them money, and their new owner is upset and sends his ninja killer robots to help take care of the problem.  It’s all because some people don’t want to give up living in a terrible neighborhood that needs to be bulldozed anyway.

That’s an incredibly weak story on top of the opposite being true in the real history of the city.  The bad acting, plot holes, lame characters, and terrible special effects only make the viewing experience that much worse.

Did anybody else find it rather annoying that once again there’s a child as a major character, but it’s even worse than Hob, the child criminal in RoboCop 2?  In this film we have Nokki, some sort of child prodigy in her school.  She’s capable of sneaking through air vents and infiltrating everything from a police station to OCP’s allegedly secure headquarters building.  When she’s not sneaking around she’s capable of using her handy little laptop to hack into extremely sophisticated robots including the ED-209 and the ninja robots from Japan.  And on top of that she shows little to no emotion in the film, especially when she’s separated from her parents.

And we’re supposed to believe her as a major character?  Yeah, right.

The only good thing going for this film is that Basil Poledouris returned to conduct the music.  The film’s soundtrack is pretty good and you get to hear a lot of the main RoboCop theme from the first movie, especially at the end when Robo is fighting everybody.

Something interesting about these three RoboCop films is that while they’re all set in the crime-infested city of Detroit, Michigan (still true to this day), you don’t see any of the city’s skyline or landmarks.  If I remember correctly, the only shot of Detroit’s skyline is in the opening credits of the first RoboCop film.  That’s it.  The first two films were mostly filmed in Dallas and Houston, Texas, and part three was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia.  The Atlanta skyline is EXTREMELY OBVIOUS during the scenes with the Battle of Cadillac Heights.

This is just one bad film from start to finish.  It’s clearly the worst of the trilogy, and RoboCop 3 is an insult to the series.

RoboCop 3 (1993) – movie trailer

RoboCop 3 classifies as a film that should have never been created.  Shame on director Fred Dekker for allowing this piece of crap for seeing the light of day.