Omni Consumer Products are up to their old tricks and are intent on turfing citizens out of their homes so that they can demolish them and re-build a new town called Delta City. The new CEO of Omni Consumer Products (Rip Torn) recruits a crack team of mercenaries led by Paul McDaggett (John Castle) to evict the citizens from their homes. However, some of the citizens form a rebel alliance and fight back against OCP and the mercenaries.
Ahhh here we have Robocop 3 which is kindly referred to as the turkey of the franchise. Although this third film is far from perfect I do think that it's unfairly maligned and I will attempt to explain why I'm prepared to defend it...
First of all if we begin with the story; here we basically have the entire focus of OCP and their greed which is pretty much what the first film explored. I think that's what gives it the edge over the second film as I found the story stupid in the second film whereas it was better in this film. Think about it you're more likely to get on side with a bunch of rebel fighters who are trying to protect their homes as opposed to a bunch of violent drug-pushers. Given the fact that Peter Weller was responsible for making Robocop something of an icon it was a brave move for Burke to accept the role in this third film. To his credit, Burke does a very good job and was every bit as good as Weller in my opinion. Granted it was a risk re-casting the role, but I personally felt that it paid off here.
Another strong aspect of this film is that the writers made it more of a human story and explored Robocop's emotional psyche more; examples of this are Robocop's decision to disobey an order to go and rescue Lewis OR Robocop's decision not to tell Niko that her parents were dead. Robocop 3 is notably less violent than the first two films which may disappoint those with a lust for blood. I myself have no problem with blood and violence, but I think it was toned down here to create a more human story. I also suspect that the writers perhaps didn't want to create too much of a copycat sequel.
This film also has so much camp value that's almost impossible not to like this film; Robocop is given a lot of dry dialogue here and some of the lines that he delivers are cheesy, but very funny as well (this camp humour was present in the first two films, but there seemed to be more of it here). The final line in this film was probable one of the most memorable that I've come across and was also very funny.
Are there any problems here? Well as Churchill the dog would say 'Oh Yes'...... The first half of the film is dull and lifeless and was a bit of a slog to get through. Thankfully though the second half is much stronger so this isn't a major criticism. I thought the inclusion of a flight pack for Robocop was a ridiculous idea. I also thought the inclusion of the Splatter Punks was a bit pointless and unnecessary. Some of the performances were woeful(particularly from Rip Torn who I felt was miscast here as he lacked the menace that the original old man had in the first 2 films). I also found it hard to take him serious as he reminded me of Terry Thomas with that stupid moustache. Aside from Burke, the only other performance that I rated in this film was that of Paul McDaggett who did give the film some of the menace that we saw in Robocop and Robocop 2. The robot ninja character could have been developed better and the fight scenes between him and Robocop were ridiculous, anti-climatic and the resolution was rather predictable.
Overall then this is a mixed bag of a film, but for me the human story and the camp value combined together made this to be a fairly enjoyable film or possibly even a guilty pleasure. Yeah it has its problems, but I don't believe that it is deserved of its terrible reputation. I actually thought it was a slight improvement on Robocop 2, but it doesn't come close to the greatness of the original Robocop.
