While my opinion of RoboCop 2 dramatically changed, RoboCop 3 is still a crappy movie made by well intentioned filmmakers. The story itself is fine but the loss of Peter Weller was felt and like most movies that add kids into the mix (Alien 3), it’s rarely a good thing.
RoboCop 3
— Collector’s Edition —
(1993)
Genre(s): Action, Science Fiction
Shout Factory | PG13 – 105 min. – $34.93 | March 21, 2017
Date Published: 03/04/2017 | Author: The Movieman
|
|
|||||||||||
THE MOVIE — 1.5/5 |
|
Note: This portion taken from my 2010 review, but my thoughts, unlike those of RoboCop 2, reflects my opinions today… The third and final movie in the RoboCop trilogy ends with a whimper rather than a roar. Funny thing is, this entry only serves to highlight the good things from RC2 than anything else and makes that one look like a sci-fi action classic by comparison.
The story and antagonist for our favorite law enforcement cyborg focuses still on the evil OCP Corporation which is going ahead with plans to level Detroit in favor of Delta City by throwing people out of their homes and detaining them at centers to fulfill the corporate utopia. The business’s CEO (RIP TORN) is moving forward with his predecessor’s vision. The dirty work for the evictions is carried out by OCP’s military wing led by Paul McDaggett (JOHN CASTLE). A rebel group has formed to oppose OCP who work underground and try to disrupt the evictions for a few days because afterward the company would go into default and lose out… or something along those lines, I wasn’t entirely clear on how that all would work out. The rebels are headed by Bertha (played by the underutilized CCH POUNDER) and her purpose is saving a young girl named Nikko (REMY RYAN) whose mom and dad are captured but she has her own value as she’s a cracker computer genius and is able to hack an ED-209 as well as a new Japanese model towards the end of the film. Of course, since they made RoboCop fly, that little golden nugget wasn’t a big deal as a whole.
Oh, I forgot about RoboCop, didn’t I? Yeah, the title character is actually in the film and although he doesn’t appear in full until the 20-minute mark – and in most ridiculous fashion shooting through the top of his car rather than just opening the driver-side door – but he spends most of the movie getting his ass whooped than fighting crime. Yeah, he blows away a few bad guys but since this was a PG-13 rated picture, the violence was toned way down and thus the body count was also lowered. And you know what? PG-13 is fine so long as the script came through as many movies with that rating have succeeded (see: The Dark Knight and the Bourne franchise) but the screenplay does the film no favors. This is also not to mention that Peter Weller, due to other obligations (and I doubt he wanted to do it anyway) did not reprise his role and it was instead played by Robert Burke. However, really outside of a few minutes I’m not sure if I really missed Weller as RoboCop primarily appeared with his helmet on, so outside of continuity, I can’t think how even someone with Weller’s presence could have saved RoboCop 3.
Overall, the first part of the film wasn’t too bad and there are some nice moments but the ridiculousness of certain scenes vastly outweighs any good from RoboCop 3. With its PG-13 rating and the fact it was filmed in 1991 (a year after the sequel), this was yet another project more concerned with grabbing money than putting out a quality project. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 3.5/5 |
|
This release comes with a matted slip cover. The interior cover reveals the original poster artwork. Audio Commentaries
Delta City Shuffle: The Making of RoboCop 3 (38:27; HD) – This featurette includes some of the same participants and new ones including Dekker and actors Nancy Allen and Bruce Locke (Otomo) discussing the origins of this addition. Interviews (HD):
Last up is the Theatrical Trailer (2:02; HD) and Still Gallery (7:07; HD). |
VIDEO – 4.0/5 |
| Unlike its predecessor, it doesn’t appear this got the 2K scan treatment so I suspect this might be the same transfer as the original Blu-ray release. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The 1080p high-definition transfer features sharp detail throughout and colors vibrant and skin tones appear natural looking. I didn’t notice much in the way of flaws like aliasing, artifacts, dust marks, specs, etc. |
AUDIO – 3.75/5 |
| As with other Shout Factory releases, this comes with 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio tracks and obviously the former gives out more depth through each channel, albeit the LFE was rather light, while the 2.0 option is adequate with all audio funneled through those two channels. Like RoboCop 2, the action sequences won’t exactly blow your socks off or shake the windows, yet it still sounds pretty good. |
OVERALL – 2.0/5 |
|
Overall, while my opinion of RoboCop 2 dramatically changed, RoboCop 3 is still a crappy movie made by well intentioned filmmakers. The story itself is fine but the loss of Peter Weller was felt and like most movies that add kids into the mix (Alien 3), it’s rarely a good thing. This Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release offers up good video/audio transfers while the features were well worth watching. |
Check out some more screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.