`Robocop 2' Is Well-Done Copy -- But As Sequels Go, Its Recycled Theme Offers Few New Ideas

1/2 ``RoboCop 2,'' with Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Daniel O'Herlihy, Tom Noonan, Belinda Bauer. Directed by Irvin Kershner, from a script by Frank Miller and Walon Green. Aurora Village, Crossroads, Factoria, Gateway, Grand Cinemas Alderwood, Kent, Lewis & Clark, Oak Tree, Totem Lake, United Artists Cinema 150, Valley drive-in. ``R'' - Restricted, due to violence, language.

Paul Verhoeven's original ``RoboCop,'' which became the sleeper box-office hit of summer 1987, is looking more and more like some of kind of unrepeatable pop masterpiece.

Verhoeven's own follow-up film, ``Total Recall,'' starts out like gangbusters, with a similar mixture of futuristic satire, bone-crunching violence and science-fiction poetry. Ultimately, however, it doesn't mesh the elements as neatly.

Neither does Irvin Kershner's official sequel, ``RoboCop 2,'' which is entertaining enough on its own level and is certainly a cut above most summer sequels. It also suggests that there's plenty of life left in the oddly stalled career of the man who made ``The Empire Strikes Back''; it's the first movie the 67-year-old Kershner has directed in seven years, and there's nothing tired or old-hat about it.

Still, Kershner never succeeds in creating anything more than a well-done carbon copy, self-consciously recycling themes and visual ideas from the first film while adding very little that he can call his own. If you've seen Verhoeven's ``RoboCop,'' there's no compelling reason to rush out and catch this talented imitation.

Kershner and his writers, Walon Green and Frank Miller, have also broadened the satirical elements and emphasized the gore to such an extent that they get in the way. Verhoeven deftly used his fake commercials and send-ups of television news shows as part of a futuristic environment, and the grisly aspects fit the story he was telling. Kershner occasionally stops the film dead in its tracks to throw in a commercial or a torture scene or a brain-surgery close-up, and it's off-putting.

The script for ``RoboCop 2'' is a fairly skillful reworking of the original's plot, with Dan O'Herlihy once more cast as the head of a Detroit corporation that attempts to create a police cyborg that can effectively patrol the city's war-zone streets. Peter Weller again plays the only half-man for the job, and Nancy Allen is his loyal partner.

Their chief opponent is a Charles Manson type named Cain (Tom Noonan), who compares himself to Jesus, holds sway over a collection of fanatical dope addicts, and promotes a deadly designer drug called Nuke, which is so potent that half the citizens of Detroit seem ready to kill for it.

Complicating the situation is a foolish cybernetic shrink (Belinda Bauer) who says things like ``I'm so glad we had this chance to dialogue.'' She systematically reprograms Weller, replacing his law-enforcement priorities with pleasantries, cliches and dangerously inappropriate responses.

Kershner and his writers have a jolly time with this lady, while throwing in plenty of digs at ineffectual politicians, unrealistic liberals, abusive corporate bosses, very juvenile delinquents and would-be drug legalizers. They also make the most of a showdown involving Herlihy and a drug-addicted cyborg, and an ending that all but spells out that ``RoboCop 3'' is on the way. For all its slavish attempts to match the original, it isn't all deja-vu.