Deputy Dawg-O-Cop

By the time the third, ill-advised RoboCop feature was released in 1993, virtually everything that made Paul Verhoevan’s classic original so unique had evaporated. The tongue-in-cheek satire was pretty much gone, the ultra-violence had been distilled down to a kid-friendly PG-13 rating and the main cast had either jumped ship or were killed off.

Fred (Monster Squad) Dekker directs RoboCop 3 with a solid, but grubby, mid-80’s sensibility but can’t overcome a terrible, poorly constructed script. Characters disappear for long chunks of the narrative (Jill Hennessy’s robo-technician), some are cut off mid-story when no longer required (Nancy Allen’s embattled cop Lewis), some characters are great but pointless (Bradley Whitford’s asshole OCP rep) and RoboCop himself feels like a side character in his own movie. If there’s any narrative through line it’s the focus on Remy Ryan’s pre-teen hacker which truly drags the franchise irredeemably down to kiddie-flick level. The story lacks focus as it lops from a Magnificent Seven style uprising plot to a sub plot involving corporate takeover, all the wit, cleverness, hardcore action has gone and the special effects, particularly RoboCop on jetback, are staggeringly incompetent At least Basil Poledouris returns to compose the score.

The very worst thing about RoboCop 3 is RoboCop himself with Robert John Burke taking over from the absent Peter Weller. It takes over 15 minutes for the title character to appear in his own movie and when he does he speaks with the voice of 60’s animated character Deputy Dawg. It’s unintentionally hilarious and the main reason this film has remain unwatchable for nearly two decades.