In Memorium

Today we conclude our tribute to late director Irvin Kershner with a review of his final studio film: 'RoboCop 2.' Not one of the best directing experiences for the old professor, he still managed to deliver an action-packed thriller that has picked up new life on home video, and is now considered a cult hit. I found this little commentary about Kersh and 'RoboCop 2' that I thought was interesting:

"What's so oddly compelling about Robocop 2 is the way Kershner tries to redeem even the film's most indecent baddies," blogs Simon Abrams for the New York Press. "There's a crude humanism to the film that's infinitely more stirring than the hokey community-centric storyline of Robocop 3. Cain [Tom Noonan], who effectively dies twice in the film, goes out (both times) with a look of agonized terror that's anything but cathartic. He's the big baddy, ruthlessly cutting up a guy with a rusty scalpel just for revealing where their old hide-out was. But when he gets smothered in his hospital bed and reduced to a brain, a spinal cord and a pair of googly eyes, you're scared for him. Even Hob [Gabriel Damon], who in Cain's absence turns into a pint-sized zoot suit-wearing entrepreneur, reverts back to being an innocent kid. These miraculous transformations are Kershner's legacy: bad people exist in his films but they are all, basically, human beings that get hideously transformed by their disgusting actions. Too bad that that only really comes across in Robocop 2 once the film's antagonists are at the point of dying."