Robocop 2 replaces the inspiration and sharp intelligence of the original with decidedly tired routines that never amount to much more than standard formula bang-and-crash stuff.
The Detroit of the near future is still a hopeless mixture of corporate skyscrapers and crime-infested streets. It's not long, however, before our law-enforcing human hero (Weller) is on the trail of Cain (Tom Noonan), a chilling gang-leader who plans to ensnare the city with his designer drug, the appropriately-named Nuke. Cam and his "merry" men soon capture Murphy and cut him into little more than scrap metal. An ambitious psychologist (Bauer) is, predictably, brought in to reconstitute Murphy as, yes, Robocop 2, except that this time he's a bureaucrat programmed to play it strictly by the book.
Naturally, however, a few traces of the unquenchable Murphy still survive and it's not long before he has reprogrammed himself, killed everyone, saved the world from Nuke etc. Almost every plot twist, action sequence and slice of social satire in Robocop 2 helps to congeal the inspirations of the first film into a somewhat drab routine. Amazingly, a second sequel, Robocob 3, was released in 1993, which doesn't feature Weller or Allen but DOES have an - erm - flying Robocop. Yawn.