After the abysmal critical and popular performance of Robocop 3 and the watered down TV series, it seemed like poor old Robo was out of breath which is probably why a Canadian production company was able to get the rights and made big promises to return the character to it's serious, satirical, blood-soaked roots.
On paper, this should've been good; it's now been over ten years since the original film and Robocop is aging, both in his organic and mechanical components. Not only that, but Alex Murphy's son, Jimmy, is now a junior executive on OCP. Delta City is no longer just a dream, but OCP has committed serious managerial errors, imposing a non-lethal crimefighting policy, just in time for a new, very much lethal supervillain named Bone Machine to make his appearance, all while a sinister cabal named Trust is formed within the ranks of the OCP.
Problem is that the production falls flat straight out of the gate as Page Fletcher is far too small of stature to fill the Robocop shoes. Or the rest of his costume, because he looks like the suit was made for someone far bigger than himself. The new, second Robocop's costume fits slightly better on the person wearing it, but still doesn't look quite right, thanks to his lips practically bursting through the prosthetics. The production values in general are so poor that the earlier TV series looked like a Hollywood production in comparison.
While they technically succeeded in delivering on their promise, it certainly feels like the use of the adult elements is somewhat misguided. Graphic violence, the little there is, doesn't really serve much in the way of purpose the way it did in the original. Somebody gets shot, a squib goes off. It's nowhere as over the top as the first two films. The trademark satire feels somewhat toothless, largely thanks to the extremely cheap look of the in-universe TV broadcasts, which never convince you for a second these were produced by a multi-million dollar megacorporation.
And then there's the story. There's nowhere near enough of it to pad out the six hour runtime, and it feels like there was a huge change in production staff midway through because the sudden change in direction comes almost out of nowhere. Suddenly there's a new villain with a new plan, the cabal within the OCP is almost completely sidelined, and the only plot thread carried through all four mini-movies to the end to any kind of a satisfying conclusion is the James Murphy subplot.
I never saw this series on it's broadcast, largely because I don't think it was ever actually broadcast here. It also never really seems to come up when discussing the character; at most people mention the third movie or the TV series saying "oh yeah that was bad", but this never seems to crop up. I bought the DVD many years ago and despite having watched it then, I realized I remembered almost nothing about it on my re-watch, but I can now see why that was the case; the story is such a mess and the production values so bad, that to be quite honest, if I had to recommend anybody either this or the earlier TV series, I'd probably go with the latter. Bloodless as it may be, it's positives far outweigh the negatives compared to Prime Directives.
On paper, this should've been good; it's now been over ten years since the original film and Robocop is aging, both in his organic and mechanical components. Not only that, but Alex Murphy's son, Jimmy, is now a junior executive on OCP. Delta City is no longer just a dream, but OCP has committed serious managerial errors, imposing a non-lethal crimefighting policy, just in time for a new, very much lethal supervillain named Bone Machine to make his appearance, all while a sinister cabal named Trust is formed within the ranks of the OCP.
Problem is that the production falls flat straight out of the gate as Page Fletcher is far too small of stature to fill the Robocop shoes. Or the rest of his costume, because he looks like the suit was made for someone far bigger than himself. The new, second Robocop's costume fits slightly better on the person wearing it, but still doesn't look quite right, thanks to his lips practically bursting through the prosthetics. The production values in general are so poor that the earlier TV series looked like a Hollywood production in comparison.
While they technically succeeded in delivering on their promise, it certainly feels like the use of the adult elements is somewhat misguided. Graphic violence, the little there is, doesn't really serve much in the way of purpose the way it did in the original. Somebody gets shot, a squib goes off. It's nowhere as over the top as the first two films. The trademark satire feels somewhat toothless, largely thanks to the extremely cheap look of the in-universe TV broadcasts, which never convince you for a second these were produced by a multi-million dollar megacorporation.
And then there's the story. There's nowhere near enough of it to pad out the six hour runtime, and it feels like there was a huge change in production staff midway through because the sudden change in direction comes almost out of nowhere. Suddenly there's a new villain with a new plan, the cabal within the OCP is almost completely sidelined, and the only plot thread carried through all four mini-movies to the end to any kind of a satisfying conclusion is the James Murphy subplot.
I never saw this series on it's broadcast, largely because I don't think it was ever actually broadcast here. It also never really seems to come up when discussing the character; at most people mention the third movie or the TV series saying "oh yeah that was bad", but this never seems to crop up. I bought the DVD many years ago and despite having watched it then, I realized I remembered almost nothing about it on my re-watch, but I can now see why that was the case; the story is such a mess and the production values so bad, that to be quite honest, if I had to recommend anybody either this or the earlier TV series, I'd probably go with the latter. Bloodless as it may be, it's positives far outweigh the negatives compared to Prime Directives.