History Film / RoboCop2

* IronicEcho: The music introducing the RoboCop 2 prototypes that [[DrivenToSuicide killed themselves]] is the same that plays when [=RoboCain=] is unveiled at the Delta City press conference.

-->'''Faxx:''' You are free -- no worries, no doubts, no puzzling questions.

** Dr. Faxx uses Cain's addiction to Nuke to control him once he's revived... but Cain soon realizes that he can just overpower anyone in his way. [=RoboCop=] better utilizes Cain's addictions in the final battle -- despite having superior firepower and a nearly indestructible cyborg body, [=RoboCain=]'s withdrawal-addled mind allows [=RoboCop=] to fight on nearly even terms through better strategy.

* GreatOffscreenWar: The Amazon War mentioned through the franchise is first mentioned here as it's seen when Faxx is looking up Cain's background that he's served in the war. In [[ComicBook/FRankMillersRoboCop Frank Miller's original script]], Sgt. Reed would've been revealed to have also served in the conflict and gone OhCrap from seeing the Rehabs ([[RefittedForSequel a concept recycles for]] ''Film/RoboCop3''), recognizing them as mercenaries who also served in the conflict.

** One of the guys ransacking the gun shop upon realizing that the officer they shot at isn't only still alive but is [[ShootingSuperman RoboCop]].

** Unlike in the original movie, Cobra Cannon here is built out of a largely forgotten Pauza P50 rifle. And during the gun store robbery in the beginning, the robbers can be seen taking scoped Pauza P50s from a display case which is specifically marked "Pauza Specialties".

* PsychoPsychologist: Juliette Faxx is pretty crazy as when she's given control of the [=RoboCop=] project, she decided to look into death row inmates for viable candidates and decides on Cain, a known deal cult leader, and murderer -- and is overjoyed when after she put his brain into the [=RoboCop=] 2 body, survives an attempt to destroy him, even after he been massacring people.

* StupidEvil: Faxx, you honestly thought it was a good idea to put the mind of the city's greatest drug dealer and a serial killer into the body of a nearly unstoppable robot, all under the pretense that you think he's under your control as long as he doesn't reach his controls? And her arrogance got countless lives lost in the process.
* {{Sucksessor}}: Every attempt to create a new and improved replacement for the original Robocop ends terribly. The first Robocop 2 prototype actually does appear more heavily armored than Murphy while retaining a reasonable humanoid size but goes on a murder-suicide rampage almost immediately. The second prototype looks extremely bare-bones, as though the developers tried to salvage the project using whatever budget was left after the failure of the first prototype. It also offs itself immediately. Robocain is much more successful, but unfortunately is also a murderous psychopath in the body of a walking tank.
* SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome: In the first movie, the Old Man, the CEO of Omni Consumer Products, is merely the head of an amoral company who really doesn't do anything outright villainous. Indeed, he's something of a genuine idealist, as he chides Dick Jones for his callous disregard for the office worker ED-209 killed and his motivation for erecting "Delta City" genuinely seems to be out of a desire to give people jobs and security in the CrapsackWorld around them. Now, he's a flat-out CorruptCorporateExecutive, playing every trope in that particular book, who is somehow stupid enough to not figure out that there's no way putting a psychopath's brain in a super-cyborg body is going to end well. However, the fan site ''[=RoboCop=] Archive'' does point out [[https://youtu.be/CE667_oaRxM in a video]] on their Website/YouTube channel the Old Man was only seen twice at board room meetings in the first place, as opposed to multiple times behind closed door as seen here.

* TakingYouWithMe: Robocop finds himself hanging from [=RoboCain=]'s legs as the latter clings to a rooftop. Finding no other way to damage the much larger cyborg, he decides to drop Cain ''many'' floors to the road below - even if he has to fall with him.
** Immediately afterward, as [=RoboCain=] is trying to melt his face off with a welder, Robocop tries it again, forcing the welder onto a nearby gas pipe and causing an explosion that engulfs them both. He stops trying suicidal methods after that, as neither proves effective.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The "Magnavolt" may seem like an excessive means of deterring car thieves, but a South African company actually markets [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDrzMGdYWZc a car portable flame thrower to deter would-be carjackers.]]
** Hob's "lunch box" [=SMG=] is [[http://www.guns.com/2013/02/08/foldable-submachine-guns/ a real weapon.]]

* {{BFG}}: Cobra Assault Cannon from the original film returns to be used by [=RoboCop=] against Cain.

** The 37 Million are the upcoming mortgage payment; but the film's Detroit is so low on money that they can't even come up with the cash to pay that cycle of interests, and they are going to default on their debt; from dialogue, it's implied when they took a loan from OCP banking branch, defaulting allows OCP to seize city assets effectively putting them in control of the city's government. That's the reason it's comically tragic; the Mayor is willing to take a loan from the mafia because he and his subordinates are so incompetent and their predecessors so bad at management that they have run out of ways to obtain money. Even more so, they are so bad at their thing the actual citizenship is looking at OCP taking over and they can't even fundraise the cash to pay off.

* ArcWords: And ones that [[TemptingFate tempt fate]] at that, being the phrase "We're going to make Made In America mean something again", both used by Cain and his Nuke cult and the Old Man. Anytime those words or any conversation based around those words are uttered, something terrible usually happens that goes to show that whatever situation that unfolds [[MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting is as shoddy and dysfunctional as all jokes about American craftiness go]], and justified in that both enterprises are long term undermining and self-destructive practices, with flooding civilization with drugs to make addicts of all people out of in Cain's case, and causing unhelpful gentrification and sterilization of the everyday man with Delta City in the Old Man's.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The complete loss of the ozone layer would be a mass-extinction-level event in California, sterilizing the region with UV radiation. There would be much worse problems than needing extreme sunblock for exposure to the sun. If this happened over the entire planet, then the situation would be [[{{Understatement}} overwhelmingly dire.]] Ultraviolet radiation in large enough doses is actually able to kill microbes which is why it sees use as a means of sterilizing surfaces.

* HotScientist: Dr. Faxx is a villainous example.

* RareGuns:
** The movie features Pauza P50 rifles (as itself and in the guise of Cobra Assault Cannon). Only 36 of these rifles were made and now it's completely forgotten. Quite a contrast from the internationally successful and still-produced Barret M82.
** Hob has what appears to be a radio, but it unfolds into a DEB M21 submachine gun. Only nine of these were produced.

* BilingualBonus: The slave woman hiding in the limo after Murphy busts the drug lab, begs Caine to take her with him so that she won't be arrested. [[KickTheDog It doesn't work.]]

* CarFu: Lewis hits [=RoboCaine=] with a light armored vehicle to stop his rampage. [[NoSell It doesn't work.]]

* CorruptionOfAMinor: The Detroit druglord Caine allows a young boy, Hob, to join his gang. While Hob appreciates the "badass" things this allows him to do (like shooting at [=RoboCop=]), he is less appreciative when Caine forces him to watch a DirtyCop being vivisected in front of him.

** After officer Duffy rats out Cain's gang [[spoiler: Caine takes him to an abandoned hospital where we only see the initial cut of his vivisection.]]

* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: [=OCP=] has been trying to make a [=RoboCop=] 2 for some time (five months, as the Old Man tells Johnson) by the time the events of the movie take place. However, every time they try to do so, the resurrected cyborg turns suicidal upon realizing what they've become. Turns out, Alex Murphy was a one-in-a-million shot who had an overwhelming dedication to uphold the law and being a devout Irish-Catholic, a complete aversion to suicide. The average person won't take being turned into a cyborg after dying very well.

->''"Can't shoot a kid, can you fucker?"''

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The "Magnavolt" may seem like an excessive means of deterring car thieves, but a South African company actually markets [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDrzMGdYWZc a car portable flame thrower to deter would be carjackers.]]

* AmoralAttorney: Holzgang, a [[SmugSnake smug]], arrogant, slimeball of a man. Holgang is unfeeling, cruel and and expert at manipulating legal matters.

* ArbitraryGunPower: When Hob fires his M21 it's shown as a scarily powerful machine gun that guns down at least two cops, with one bullet punching straight through the front ''and'' back plates of body armor. The actual M21 is a submachinegun firing pistol rounds, effective against civilians or unarmored targets but which wouldn't be a lethal threat against an armored police force.
* ArcWords: And ones that [[TemptingFate tempt fate]] at that, being the phrase "We're going to make Made In America mean something again", both used by Cain and his Nuke cult and the Old Man. Anytime those words or any conversation based around those words are uttered, something terrible usually happens that goes to show that whatever situation that unfolds [[MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting is as shoddy and disfunctional as all jokes about American craftiness go]], and justified in that both enterprises are long term undermining and self destructive practices, with flooding civilization with drugs to make addicts of all people out of in Cain's case, and causing unhelpful gentrification and sterilization of the everyday man with Delta City in the Old Man's.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The complete loss the of the ozone layer would be a mass-extinction-level event in California, sterilizing the region with UV radition. There would be much worse problems than needing extreme sunblock for exposure to the sun. If this happened over the entire planet, then the situation would be [[{{Understatement}} overwhelmingly dire.]] Ultraviolet radiation in large enough doses is actually able to kill microbes which is why it sees use as a means of sterilizing surfaces.
* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: The telethon fundraising goal to get Detroit out of debt is 37 million. This is a ridiculously low figure for a city the size of Detroit, even in the state of decline depicted in the film. At the time the movie was made, the annual budget for city of Detroit was more than one billion, and [[http://crcmich.org/PUBLICAT/1990s/1991/cc0999.pdf could run 50 million budget deficit in just one year]]. When the city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, it was in debt in excess of 18 billion. There is also the issue that failure to pay the debt would apparently cause OCP to gain control of virtually all of the city's public services. The combined worth of that would likely be in the billions, and as such having that as collateral for a 37 million dollar debt makes no sense.
** The 37 Million are the upcoming mortgage payment; but the film's Detroit is so low on money that they can't even come up with the cash to pay that cycle of interests; and they are going to default on their debt; from dialogue it's implied when they took a loan from OCP banking branch, defaulting allows OCP to seize city assets effectively putting them in control of the city's government. That's the reason it's comically tragic; the Mayor is willing to take a loan from mafia because he and his subordinates are so incompetent and their predecessors so bad at management that they have run out of ways to obtain money. Even more so, they are so bad at their thing the actual citizenship is looking at OCP taking over and they can't even fundraise the cash to pay off.
* AttackAttackAttack: [=RoboCain=]'s primary strategy in combat. Of course, he has the [[MoreDakka firepower]] and [[MadeOfIron nigh-indestructible]] body to back it up. [[spoiler: [=RoboCop=] only manages to defeat him by exploiting his addiction to Nuke, which distracts the cyborg long enough for [=RoboCop=] to [[AndShowItToYou rip his brain out]] and smash it to chunks.]]

* BestServedCold: At the end of the movie, seeing the smug OCP executives drive off, Lewis comments that [[KarmaHoudini they're going to get away scot free]] after all the death and destruction they've caused. [=RoboCop=] however is not perturbed.

* BluntMetaphorsTrauma: [=RoboCop=] stops some kids from playing with an open fire hydrant. He attempts to dispatch some old adages of homespun wisdom, but botches several of the sayings. It's worth noting that he's been reprogrammed with so many conflicting directives that he can barely think straight.

** Cain, reduced to [[BrainInAJar a brain, spinal column and two floating eyeballs]], [[AndIMustScream forced to silently watch]] as the doctors casually chat over his disembodied, empty head with its slack face contorted in a rictus of horror. If he wasn't already insane, that would have done it.

** Played completely and frighteningly straight when [=RoboCain=] disables the crutch on his minigun arm and destroys it. He mows down several innocent reporters, police officers, and blows up many a truck and car without having to reload.

* CreditsGag: The film has absolutely no opening credits. Not even studio bumper.

* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: [=OCP=] has been trying to make a [=RoboCop=] 2 for some time (five months, as the Old Man tells Johnson) by the time the events of the movie take place. However, every time they try to do so, the resurrected cyborg turns suicidal upon realizing what they've become. Turns out, Alex Murphy was a one-in-a-million shot who had an overwhelming dedication to uphold the law, and being a devout Irish-Catholic, a complete aversion to suicide. The average person won't take being turned into a cyborg after dying very well.

* DeadlineNews: Among the dozens victims of the massive shootout that pitted [=RoboCain=] vs Murphy, the Detroit P.D., and O.C.P. Security were members of the press who were originally called down to the convention center to report on the unveiling of Delta City, and [[TitleDrop the new RoboCop 2]].
* DeathOfAChild: Hob, the youngest member of Cain's cult, who gets gunned down behind a truck door while trying to hide from [=RoboCain=].

** The two [=RoboCop=] 2 prototypes don't exactly pan out in the testing phase. One shoots several people then blows its own brains out. The second, which they wisely did not provide with a loaded weapon, immediately tore its helmet off, revealing a screaming skull before dropping dead.

* ElectricTorture: [[spoiler:Averted. With so many useless directives in his programming, Murphy grabs some wires from a nearby substation, sending thousands upon thousands of volts of electricity coursing though him, erasing the useless code outright, and wiping his memory clean.]] AndThereWasMuchRejoicing for Murphy's fellow officers.

** There's also a junior baseball team that is robbing an electronics store. Lewis is momentarily nonplussed when she realizes the criminals are ''a bunch of twelve year olds''.

* FanserviceExtra: Used deliberately in a cut sequence, to show how Robo has come to terms with the fact that his is just a machine. While walking through the OCP police station, Robo comes across the co-ed locker room, where an unnamed female officer is showering naked. Robo stops and stares for a few moments, then continues on his way.

* FreudianThreat: Of sorts, and a particularly nasty one. Near the beginning of the movie the OCP exec bullies Murphy into renouncing his attempt to reconnect with his family by hinting that he no longer has a penis, and would be unable to satisfy his wife.

* GoryDiscretionShot: Several times in the movie, we simply got strong hints as to how awful the violence being done was, such as [[spoiler:a doctor showing us Cain's agonized face after the skull holding it was sliced away]]. Used to ''great'' effect when [=RoboCop=] is dismantled to pieces by Cain's crew - we don't see what it looks like until they're done, but we see the process involves jackhammers, sledgehammers, and their own casual view of the process ''all from [=RoboCop=]'s perspective.'' It is a dark inversion of his "rebirth" in the first movie, and references the visuals of that scene.

* HeroStoleMyBike: When [=RoboCop=] gets knocked off Cain's armored car, three motorcylists are coming up on him as he's lying prone. Two of them ride ''over'' him. The third slows down and goes around, and ''that'' guy gets knocked off and has his cycle taken so Robo can pursue Cain. It's worth noting that the first two were lighter sport bike models while the third was a heavier cruiser. Robo might have rightly assumed the third was the only one capable of bearing his weight.

* HesDeadJim: After Hob is seriously wounded Robocop takes his hand. Finally Hob's grip relaxes and his hand falls open, so Robocop knows he's dead and leaves him.

* IronicEcho: The music introducing the Robo Cop 2 prototypes that [[DrivenToSuicide killed themselves]] is the same that plays when [=RoboCain=] is unveiled at the Delta City press conference.

* KidsAreCruel: [[TeenageWasteland Almost all kids shown]] on screen are little monsters who enjoy violence and law-breaking. Yet [=RoboCop=]'s conscience won't allow him to target a child. Hob, in particular, is an outright villain and a pretty evil one at that. The kids playing with the fire hydrant are a milder example of this as their only form of cruelty is to give [=RoboCop=] a spray-paint job.
* KilledMidSentence: The Surgeon General's death in the beginning of the movie: gunned down in the middle of a speech about the spread of Nuke, ironically by a militant Nuke addict working for Cain.

* NameOfCain: Cain, the villain in the second film, is a drug lord, torturer and murderer.

** Later, after Robo-Cain goes on a rampage, he scans the crowd looking for Murphy while being shot at by the Detroit P.D., and O.C.P. security. Eventually he gives up his search, and only fires back because the hundreds of rounds hitting him are causing a minor annoyance. Lewis smashing into him [[CarFu using an APC]] only slows him down for a few seconds.

** One of the guys ransacking the gun shop upon realizing that the officer they shot at isn't only still alive, but is [[ShootingSuperman RoboCop]].

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Dr. Faxx. Belinda Bauer manages to sound broadly American only a handful of times. The rest she swings between vaguely English, Irish, even German and French on a few occasions. What nationality is the actress? Australian.

** Unlike in the original movie, Cobra Cannon here is built out of largely forgotten Pauza P50 rifle. And during the gun store robbery in the beginning, the robbers can be seen taking scoped Pauza P50s from a display case which is specifically marked "Pauza Specialties".
* ProducePelting: Arcade customers pelt [=RoboCop=] with popcorn and boo him when he wonders aloud "Isn't this a schoolnight?"
* PsychoPsychologist: Juliette Faxx is pretty crazy as when she's given control of the [=RoboCop=] project, she decided to look into death row inmates for viable candidates and decides on Cain, a known deal cult leader and murderer -- and is overjoyed when, after she put his brain into the [=RoboCop=] 2 body, survives an attempt to destroy him, even after he been massacring people.

* PuttingOnTheReich: The OCP banners are red with a white circle, black company logo inside it. The company's private army wear totalitarian longcoats and caps.

** The movie features Pauza P50 rifles (as itself and in guise of Cobra Assault Cannon). Only 36 of these rifles were made and now it's comletely forgotten. Quite a contrast from internationally successful and still-produced Barret M82.

* RealityIsUnrealistic: Cain snapping Angie's neck on the close-up shot was done with the actual actress, Galyn Görg, and not a dummy. [[https://youtu.be/VzEvKPAU_QU?t=690 According to Robert Tippet]], she was incredibly flexible and had a very strong neck. Even when her head was almost at a 90 degree angle, she was completely fine and kept cranking her neck more when necessary.

* RoboCam: Mecha-Cain appears to run on an early version of [=MacOS=], complete with skull logo in the upper left.
* RoboticPsychopath: [=RoboCain=] is a giant armored robot with the brain of an AxCrazy criminal put inside it. Obviously, this makes it an uncontrollable deathbot. Nice going, OCP execs.

* ShootTheHostageTaker: During a raid on a drug lab, a criminal takes a baby hostage. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzOlSQouV2E#t=0m29s RoboCop uses a ricochet shot off a metal door to shoot the hostage taker in the head.]]

* StupidEvil: Faxx, you honestly thought it was a good idea to put the mind of the city's greatest drug dealer and a serial killer into the body of a nearly unstoppable robot, all under the pretense that that you think he's under your control as long as he doesn't reach his controls? And her arrogance got countless lives lost in the process.
* {{Sucksessor}}: Every attempt to create a new and improved replacement for the original Robocop ends terribly. The first Robocop 2 prototype actually does appear more heavily armored than Murphy while retaining a reasonable humanoid size, but goes on a murder-suicide rampage almost immediately. The second prototype looks extremely bare-bones, as though the developers tried to salvage the project using whatever budget was left after the failure of the first prototype. It also offs itself immediately. Robocain is much more successful, but unfortunately is also a murderous psychopath in the body of a walking tank.

* SuperWindowJump: [=RoboCop=] plays chicken with Cain by putting his hijacked motorcycle against his van, and uses the ensuing crash to jump through its windshield.

** Immediately afterwards, as [=RoboCain=] is trying to melt his face off with a welder, Robocop tries it again, forcing the welder onto a nearby gas pipe and causing an explosion that engulfs them both. He stops trying suicidal methods after that, as neither proves effective.

* {{Telethon}}: Mayor Marvin Kuzack organizes a telethon to raise money to save Detroit from bankruptcy. However, we can see that he still has a long ways to go.

** Faxx, a psychologist, comes up with the idea of taking [[AxCrazy death row inmates]] and giving them a cyborg body, outright saying that criminals would make good candidates because [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity the power and immortality would appeal to them]] and thusly they wouldn't go crazy like the cops who had been prior test models. At least Dr. Schenk called her out on that one, and Johnson is quick to shoot her down when she approaches him about it. Alas she managed to convince the Old Man to go along with her idea.

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Hob, the villain's main henchman, who is a boy of about 12 and very competent in criminal business.

* UnwillingRoboticization: It's implied very strongly - what with his powerless protests as Faxx is proclaiming him deceased and shutting off his life support - that Cain never actually consented to becoming the new [=RoboCop=].

* VillainBall: Cain and his crew overpower [=RoboCop=], dismember him, but then, instead of finishing him off and throwing him into an incinerator, dump the parts at the police station to rub it in the police's face, that they've beat the best of them. Apparently it didn't occur to them that [=RoboCop=] could be rebuilt, or they felt over-confident. Also, they could have figured the damage had already "killed" him. It's noted when the cops have [=RoboCop=] on his life-support systems that it's very lucky his organic components are still alive, and that he could die any time now if they don't get him into the resuscitative machinery at OCP.
* WeNeedADistraction: When Lewis's attempt at [[CarFu hitting RoboCain with an armored vehicle]] [[NoSell fail to stop him,]] Murphy tells her to toss him the Nuke canister, so that while Cain is busy getting his fix [[spoiler: Murphy can jump on his back and destroy his brainstem.]]

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The complete loss the of the ozone layer would be a mass-extinction-level event in California, sterilizing the region with UV radition. There would be much worse problems than needing extreme sunblock for exposure to the sun. If this happened over the entire planet, then the situation would be [[{{Understatement}} overwhelmingly dire.]] Ultraviolet radiation is actually able to kill microbes which is why it sees use as a means of sterilizing surfaces.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The complete loss the of the ozone layer would be a mass-extinction-level event in California, sterilizing the region with UV radition. There would be much worse problems than needing extreme sunblock for exposure to the sun. If this happened over the entire planet, then the situation would be [[{{Understatement}} overwhelmingly dire.]]

* EyeScream: Two prostitutes beat and rob a guy who just had robbed an old lady, and he gets a heel in his eye. There is also one guard during the raid on Cain's hideout that gets a MoeGreeneSpecial courtesy of [=RoboCop=].

* The head inside the first Robocop 2 is that of the special effect supervisor.

* UnwillingRoboticization: It's not clear if Cain actually consented to becoming a new [=RoboCop=]: Dr. Faxx shut off his life support to expedite the harvesting of his brain for the project, and even before, the tubes in his mouth made it hard for him to give any informed consent.

* TakingYouWithMe: Robocop finds himself hanging from [=RoboCain=]'s legs as the latter clings to a rooftop. Finding no other way to damage the much larger cyborg, he decides to drop Cain **many** floors to the road below - even if he has to fall with him.

* AbusiveAdvertising: One of the bits of InUniverse advertisement we see is a TV commercial in which an executive angsts about how he cost his company a lucrative contract because he chose a cheaper, slower communications company to send data, then ''[[DrivenToSuicide blows his brains out]]'' before the ad fades into an "OCP Communications" logo and slogan.

* AbusiveAdvertising: One of the bits of InUniverse advertisement we see is a TV commercial in which an executive angsts about how he costed his company a lucrative contract because he chose a cheaper, slower communications company to send data, then ''[[DrivenToSuicide blows his brains out]]'' before the ad fades into an "OCP Communications" logo and slogan.

* BestServedCold: At the end of the movie, seeing the smug OCP executives drive off, Lewis comments that [[KarmaHoudini they're going to get away scott free]] after all the death and destruction they've caused. [=RoboCop=] however is not perturbed.

----

* AuthorTract: The DrugsAreBad plot wasn't original to Creator/FrankMiller, but the PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad subplot definitely was, in line with his well-publicized libertarian views. Originally, it would've been even worse, with Dr. Faxx being named Dr. Love, an evil pop psychologist, and behind everything bad that happens, complete with being the personality inside Robocop 2. As anyone who's read ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'' or ''The Dark Knight Strikes Again'' will tell you, Frank doesn't have a very high opinion of that particular type of celebrity.

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: [=RoboCop=] is revamped to be a more politically-correct role model by having over two hundred directives installed in his brain to teach "pro-social" messages (as defined by a committee). It drives him effectively insane and unable to do any real policework. [[SarcasmMode At least the trope is used subtly...]]