[9][10][11] Set in a dystopian Detroit, the plot follows RoboCop (Weller) as he becomes embroiled in a scheme made by Omni Consumer Products to bankrupt and take over the city while also fighting the spread of a street drug called "Nuke" and its gang of dealers led by Cain (Noonan).

It was nominated for three Saturn Awards, including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Performance by a Younger Actor (for Damon), and Best Special Effects (for Phil Tippett, Rob Bottin and Peter Kuran).

He locates the home of his widow and son and begins watching them until she brings litigation against OCP, but when she meets him face-to-face and is responsive to him, RoboCop claims not to know her and that her husband is dead.

Psychologist Juliette Faxx suggests that the error is the test subjects, and that Murphy was a success because of his strict Catholic upbringing and moral code, preventing him from committing suicide and reinforcing his devotion to his duty.

Faxx begins screening suitable candidates for the project, but instead of police officers she secretly considers death row inmates who desire power and immortality.

RoboCop screenwriters Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner started drafting a sequel in September 1987 due to strong demand by Orion which imposed a deadline of December 31, 1987.

[14] Neumeir and Miner rushed the screenplay as they were also simultaneously writing for another Orion project, Company Man; a film about the Central Intelligence Agency's involvement in the Contras, it was planned to be directed by Oliver Stone, star Paul Newman, and be released before the next United States election.

[16] He is revived in a now-abandoned building for the defunct Omni-Consumer Products (OCP) by two goons of a "super-entrepreneur" named Ted Flicker,[17] who plans to make the national government a private corporate entity that he will own.

[18] The script expands upon the first film's consumerist aspects; those in the high-class city plexes eat at LeisureGold where ServiceDroids serve them and make love with SexBots at various brothels; while the environment's media landscape is filled with "NewsBlips," mood-enhancing drugs ads, and MoonDog, a rapper from space, changing public opinion.

[21] In order for a sequel to still be possible, Orion had to sign a waiver to develop other RoboCop scripts, and, before he was fired, Neumeier recommended two popular comic book authors to write them: Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

[17] While RoboCop (1987) producer Jon Davison praised its grittiness, "inventive action," humor, and politics, Orion rejected the script as "unfilmable" and brought in a screenwriter of the violent western film The Wild Bunch (1969), Walon Green, to re-write it.

[23] Davison first hired his friend Tim Hunter, mostly known for River's Edge (1986), to direct RoboCop 2, citing his "realistic tone with actors" and "real dark sensibility" as reasons.

[28] Orion Pictures asserted far greater control over the sequel compared to the original film, and frequently pushed back against input from Miller, Kershner, and the actors.

"[29] Initially, Orion was skeptical of casting Weller, under the reasoning that the audience would find RoboCop the same if another actor was under the helmet, similar to the titular character of Universal's The Mummy.

[30] Weller himself was also skeptical coming back; he disliked Neumeier and Miner's draft as a "cartoon" and lacking in tension, felt not "complete with the character" thinking "there was something else to say with it," and wondered if he should do months of training for acting in a RoboCop suit, or get paid for filming in the Caribbean for ten weeks.

[37] Cullen Center was depicted as the headquarters of Omni Consumer Products, while Houston City Hall was shown in a scene in which Mayor Kuzak speaks to the press.

[39] A magazine article published at the time of filming described the environment on set as "hell on earth", with the cast and crew rebelling against Kershner's "obsessive finickyness" and "costly reshoots.

[46] Thanks to a bigger budget, the effects team had more time to paint and polish the suit, which led to Bottin's desired "show car" look he couldn't achieve in the first.

[47] With a lot of planning and fastener hunting, Bottin also built all parts of the suit to come on and off quickly so that it couldn't decay from the actor having it on too long, which was the case of the first film.

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.

VHS copies of RoboCop 2 began with an anti-drug PSA starring an out-of-character Weller that announced the Boys & Girls Clubs of America were where there was "no pot, no pills, no crack, no smack, no coke — no exceptions.

[34] In his Chicago Sun Times review, Roger Ebert wrote: "Cain's sidekicks include a violent, foul-mouthed young boy named Hob, who looks to be about 12 years old but kills people without remorse, swears like Eddie Murphy, and eventually takes over the drug business...

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.

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.

[68] Unlike the predecessor which had a self-aware tone and was hopeful the human race would last due to its rebelliousness, RoboCop 2's take on the corporate and political system is cynical, and more in the forefront of the story, with more staff of Omni-Consumer Products (including its CEO) becoming antagonists.

[33] RoboCop 2 also elaborates on Officer Murphy's remaining humanity and the tech's impact on it,[70] another reason Kershner wanted to direct; he found the conflict a symbol on real-life society becoming programmed and "roboticized" by outside forces unconsciously.

"[78] 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.