RoboCop is slowly coming to grips with the loss of his former life as Alex Murphy. Though he attempts to reach out to his family, he eventually realizes he can never return to them. When he finally sees his wife, he tells her that the face was placed on him to honor Alex Murphy.

Omni Consumer Products (OCP)'s current plans also come into focus: they attempt to have Detroit default on its debt, so that OCP can foreclose on the entire city, take over the city government, demolish the old city, and put up a planned community development, Delta City, in its place. As part of this plan, OCP forces a police strike by terminating their pension plan and cutting salaries. As RoboCop is legally the property of OCP, and cannot strike, the duties as an officer become even more dire than ever before, as the city slowly and surely sinks further into chaos and terror.

Meanwhile, the Security Concepts division of OCP continues to sink millions into the development of a more advanced "RoboCop 2". However, each project ends in disaster; once the officers realize what they have become, they immediately turn suicidal. They deduce that Murphy only survived because of his exceedingly strong sense of duty, and his moral objection to suicide as an Irish-Catholic. Dr. Juliette Faxx, an OCP psychologist, approaches the OCP President to convince him to let her take over the project. Faxx wants to choose a criminal with a desire for power and immortality.

Throughout the city, a new designer drug named “Nuke” has been plaguing the streets. The primary distributor, Cain, believes that Nuke is the way to paradise, and is obsessed with power. He is assisted by his girlfriend Angie, his still-juvenile apprentice Hob, and Officer Duffy, a corrupt police officer. Having learned of Cain's location from Duffy, RoboCop confronts him and his gang at an abandoned construction site. However, they render Murphy immobile and cut him to pieces, though he remains alive. The pieces are then left in front of the Detroit Police Station with OCP reluctant to foot his massive repair costs. Anne Lewis also remembered what happened to him when her former comrade Lt. Hedgecock followed orders from the corrupted OCP executive Dick Jones to destroy him and she killed Lt. Hedgecock. Meanwhile, officer Duffy is tortured to death by dissection. Faxx and a new RoboCop team repair Murphy, programming him with 300 new directives added for Public Relations. Murphy is ultimately powerless to refuse the new commands, and is rendered unable to take aggressive action against criminals, even to defend himself or innocent civilians.

After the original RoboCop team realizes that RoboCop would need a massive electrical charge to reboot his system, Murphy takes it upon himself to grab hold of a dangerous power-line circuit box to erase all of his directives, both new and old. The picketing officers drop their signs and turn to help him. He convinces them that Cain is more important than a strike right now. The force follows his lead to attack Cain's hideout. Cain is badly injured in a car accident with Murphy in the battle, and is taken to the hospital. With Cain immobilized, Hob takes control. Faxx, having decided that Cain is perfect for the RoboCop 2 project, arrives at the hospital and switches off his life support.

Meanwhile, Hob arranges a secret meeting with Mayor Marvin Kuzak, offering to bail out the city's debt to OCP, but only if he agrees to a hands-off policy regarding the distribution of Nuke. Since this would hinder OCP's attempts to take over the city, they send RoboCop 2 in to kill everyone. While the mayor escapes through a sewer drain, all attendants, including Hob, Angie and two city councilmen, are slaughtered. RoboCop arrives too late, only in time to find and comfort a dying Hob, who identifies Cain as the attacker.

During the unveiling of Delta City and RoboCop 2 at a press conference, the OCP President unwittingly presents a canister filled with Nuke. Cain escapes control, destroying the control device that arms his weapons, and opens fire on the crowd. RoboCop arrives, and the two cyborgs battle throughout the building, eventually falling off the roof and into an underground facility. As the rest of the police force arrives and engages Cain, RoboCop heads back to the OCP building to get the canister of Nuke. Upon seeing the canister, RoboCop 2 immediately ceases fire and takes it. While RoboCop 2 is distracted, RoboCop jumps onto his back, punches his way through to Cain's brain, rips it out of his body and smashes it, killing him.

The OCP President, executive Johnson, and OCP lawyer Holzgang discuss the company's liability for the massacre, and decide to scapegoat Faxx. Lewis complains about how the OCP executives will escape legally unscathed, but RoboCop tells her to be patient; they are "only human".

• Peter Weller as Alex Murphy/RoboCop
• Nancy Allen as Officer Anne Lewis
• Belinda Bauer as Dr. Juliette Faxx
• Dan O'Herlihy as "The Old Man" OCP President
• Felton Perry as OCP Vice President Donald Johnson
• Tom Noonan as Cain
• Roger Aaron Brown as Whittaker
• Willard E. Pugh as Mayor Marvin Kuzak
• Gabriel Damon as Hob
• Galyn Görg as Angie
• Stephen Lee as Officer Duffy
• Robert DoQui as Sgt. Reed (as Robert Do'Qui)
• Frank Miller as Frank
• Ken Lerner as Delaney
• Jeff McCarthy as Holzgang
• Linda Thompson as Mother with Baby
• Brandon Smith as Flint
• Thomas Rosales, Jr. as Chet (as Tommy Rosales)
• Tzi Ma as Tak Akita
• Wanda De Jesus as Estevez
• John Glover as Magnavolt Salesman
• Mario Machado as Casey Wong
• Patricia Charbonneau as Robocop Technician
• Leeza Gibbons as Jess Perkins
• John Ingle as Surgeon General
• Fabiana Udenio as Sunblock Woman
• Barry Martin as OCP Cop
• Mark Rolston as Stef

RoboCop 2 was directed by Irvin Kershner, rather than Paul Verhoeven, due to Verhoeven's commitment to directing Total Recall. It was based on a script by Frank Miller and Walon Green. Edward Neumeier, one of the screenwriters for the first film was originally planned to write, and had even written a first draft, but was forced to drop out of the project due to a writers strike. After the success of The Dark Knight Returns (comic book mini-series), Frank Miller was contacted by producer Jon Davison about writing the sequel, and Miller accepted.

However, Miller's script was labeled "unfilmable" by producers and studio executives. His script was changed through rewrites, into what became the final script. Even when his tenure as screenwriter was officially over, Miller showed up on set everyday. He was given a cameo as "Frank the chemist."

RoboCop is again played by Peter Weller, who played RoboCop in the first film. However, although a second sequel and a television series were made, this was the last time Weller played the role, due to complaints of how cumbersome and exhausting it was to wear the suit and also because Weller found RoboCop 2 to be a very negative and disappointing film to work on. He complained about some scenes not making into the final cut, "There was a couple of things that made the character more human that weren't used. I can't remember exactly what the scenes were, I just remember wondering why they weren't in." These deleted scenes have never been included on home video releases. Weller's co-star, Nancy Allen, also had negative feelings regarding the second film.

Despite not being directed by Paul Verhoeven, the director of the first film, RoboCop 2 contains many familiar Verhoeven touches, including satirical television commercials (such as for an ultra powerful sunblock to deal with the depletion of Earth's ozone layer which is itself carcinogenic) and ironically upbeat news broadcasts. The events in the second film closely follow the events in the first film (the ED-209 unit, for example, is mentioned as being deployed and malfunctioning).

Filming

RoboCop 2 was chiefly filmed in Houston in 1989. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Kershner mentioned that Houston was an ideal location because of the relative calmness of Downtown Houston at night. He also claimed that because the film needed to be shot in the winter, too much snow and rain would be inappropriate. The grand finale of the film was filmed in the Houston Theater District with Wortham Theater Center and Alley Theatre being displayed.Cullen Center was depicted as the headquarters of Omni Consumer Products, while Houston City Hall was shown during a scene with Mayor Kuzak giving a speech. Scenes with the George R. Brown Convention Center and the Bank of America Center were also included in the film.

The film score was composed and conducted by Leonard Rosenman, who did not use any of Basil Poledouris's themes from the first film; the soundtrack album was released by Varèse Sarabande. It was not well received by fans or film music reviewers, many of whom complained about Rosenman's use of a choir chanting "Robocop."

The glam metal group Babylon A.D. released a song called "The Kid Goes Wild", written by members Derek Davis, Vic Pepe, and Jack Ponti. The song is played in the background in the middle part of the film, and it was also used to promote the film. The group created a music video featuring RoboCop targeting the band and having a shootout with some bad guys (footage of the film was also used).

Track listing

1. "Overture: Robocop" – 6:02
2. "City Mayhem" – 3:37
3. "Happier Days" – 1:28
4. "Robo Cruiser" – 4:40
5. "Robo Memories" – 2:07
6. "Robo and Nuke" – 2:22
7. "Robo Fanfare" – 0:32
8. "Robo and Cain Chase" – 2:41
9. "Creating the Monster" – 2:47
10. "Robo I vs. Robo II" – 3:41

Box office

RoboCop 2 debuted at No.2 at the box office.

Critical reception

RoboCop 2 received mixed reviews from critics and fans of the first film. While the special effects and action sequences are widely praised, a common complaint was that the film did not focus enough on RoboCop and his partner Lewis and that the film's human story of the man trapped inside the machine was ultimately lost within a sea of violence. This film was also partially disliked by actors Weller and Allen as they both thought it was a negative film to work on. In his review, Roger Ebert wrote "Cain's sidekicks include a violent, foul-mouthed young boy (Gabriel Damon), who looks to be about 12 years old but kills people without remorse, swears like Eddie Murphy, and eventually takes over the drug business... The movie's screenplay is a confusion of half-baked and unfinished ideas... the use of that killer child is beneath contempt..."

Additionally, the film "reset" RoboCop's character by turning him back into the monotone-voiced peacekeeper seen early in the first film (despite the fact that by the end of the first film, he had regained his human identity and speech mannerisms). Many were also critical of the child villain Hob; David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews stated, "That the film asks us to swallow a moment late in the story that features Robo taking pity on an injured Hob is heavy-handed and ridiculous (we should probably be thankful the screenwriters didn't have RoboCop say something like, 'Look at what these vile drugs have done to this innocent boy')."

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Unlike RoboCop, a clever and original science-fiction film with a genuinely tragic vision of its central character, Robocop 2 doesn't bother to do anything new. It freely borrows the situation, characters and moral questions posed by the first film." She further adds, "The difference between Robocop and its sequel, [...] is the difference between an idea and an afterthought." She also expressed her opinion about the Hob character, "The aimlessness of Robocop 2 runs so deep that after exploiting the inherent shock value of such an innocent-looking killer, the film tries to capitalize on his youth by also giving him a tearful deathbed scene." The Los Angeles Times published a review panning the film as well.

However Globe and Mail film critic Jay Scott was one of the few prominent critics who admired the film calling it a "sleek and clever sequel. For fans of violent but clever action films, RoboCop 2 may be the sultry season's best bet: you get the gore of Total Recall and the satiric smarts of Gremlins 2 The New Batch in one high-tech package held together by modest B-movie strings. RoboCop 2 alludes to classics of horror and science-fiction (Frankenstein, Metropolis, Westworld), for sure, but it also evokes less rarefied examples of the same genres - Forbidden Planet, Godzilla, and that Z-movie about Hitler's brain in a bottle. It's ironic that the directorial coach of the first RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven, went on to Total Recall; couldn't he see that the script for Robo 2 was sleeker and swifter than Arnie's cumbersome vehicle? His absence in the driver's seat is happily unnoticed because Irvin Kershner, the engineer of sequels that often zip qualitatively past the originals (The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of a Man Called Horse, and the best Sean Connery–James Bond of all, Never Say Never Again), has tuned-up the premise until it purrs."

RoboCop 2 currently has 35% positive reviews on the film review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, with 20 of 31 counted reviews giving it a "rotten" rating and an average score of 4.5 out of 10.

Novel

A mass market paperback novelization by Ed Naha, titled RoboCop 2: A Novel, was published by Jove Books. Marvel Comics produced a three-issue adaptation of the film by Alan Grant. Like the novelization, the comic book series includes scenes omitted from the finished movie. Ocean and Data East published a series of video games based on RoboCop 2

Frank Miller's Robocop

Frank Miller's original screenplay for RoboCop 2 took on an almost "urban legend" status, and was later turned into a nine-part comic book series called Frank Miller's RoboCop. Critical reaction to the comic adaptation of the Miller script were mixed to negative. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the comic a "D" score, criticizing the "tired story" and lack of "interesting action." A recap written for the pop culture humor website I-Mockery said, "Having spent quite a lot of time with these comics over the past several days researching and writing this article, I can honestly say that it makes me want to watch the movie version of RoboCop 2 again just so I can get the bad taste out of my mouth. Or prove to myself that the movie couldn't be worse than this."

• List of American films of 1990
• RoboCop 2 (video game)
• RoboCop 3