Orion Pictures released RoboCop 3 in the United States on 5 November 1993. (Columbia Pictures released it earlier in the year in Japan.)
I highlight the film today because I really like it. Critics hated it, of course. And I would like to highlight Richard Harrington’s review in The Washington Post. He called it “downright silly.”
Wow! I bet that came as a shock to the filmmakers! In my own review, I wrote that it was “the silliest of the RoboCop films.” But note the difference. All of the RoboCop films are silly! A critic complaining that the third film in the series is silly shows he didn’t follow the first two.
But Harrington wasn’t the only idiotic critic. The film has a 9% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. They all show the same ignorance of the earlier films — thinking they were somehow serious.
What’s more, they seem to all miss the intent of the film. MPAA rated the first two films R. It rated the third PG-13. Clearly, the producers figured the brand had reached the point at which it was basically for kids. The main character in the film is a little girl! And the TV series following it was aimed at kids. Get a clue, critics!
I think the first film is probably the best. But I only ever watch RoboCop 3 anymore. It’s mindless fun.
And this gets to something I still don’t understand. Hollywood now produces a ton of silly films. And critics are mostly fine with that. As long as a film has a big enough budget, critics treat it as serious art.
I don’t particularly care. But why do they attack films like RoboCop 3 while pretending that Wonder Woman is serious art? Critics take themselves very seriously. But their work is silly — way sillier than the films they dismiss.
So let’s have some fun and watch RoboCop 3!
RoboCop 3 (1993) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
