Movie Kumite: Death Wish 4 vs. RoboCop 2

During the late 80’s and early 90’s, while Detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs were taking on drug dealers and drug cartels on the small screen, action movie heroes like Paul Kersey and RoboCop were waging their own personal war on drugs on the big screen.

In our latest cinematic slugfest, we take a look at two sequels that had big shoes to fill. RoboCop 2 was following one of the most groundbreaking movies of all-time. Death Wish 4: The Crackdown was following, what in my opinion, is the greatest movie of all-time. Both of the sequels had heroes who were looking to rid their streets of drugs, but only one of these sequels can win our Movie Kumite…

THE HEROES

One of our heroes found himself manipulated by one drug dealer to help take out the other drug dealers in town. Our other hero was first dismantled and then rebuilt and reprogrammed to be a walking PSA. Neither of our heroes were shown in the best light, but both did make a big comeback…  this is about as even as things can get so Paul Kersey and RoboCop split the point in our first round.

DEATH WISH 4 – 0.5     ROBOCOP 2 – 0.5

THE VILLAINS

John P. Ryan is one of the finest character actors in action entertainment history. But one thing that has always bothered me is that Ryan’s character is never given an actual name. Ryan’s character impersonates wealthy media mogul Nathan White as a backstory to get Kersey to do his bidding for him, but we never learn the impostor’s true identity. Can you think of any other action movie where we don’t know the name of the main villain?! The lack of character name hurts what was a great performance by Ryan, especially for the purposes of this Movie Kumite.

Tom Noonan’s portrayal of Cain, a drug lord with a God complex, was fantastic. The fact that Cain is resurrected in robot form by OCP after he is vanquished by RoboCop about midway through the movie only feeds into the character’s delusions of grandeur. Even if John P. Ryan’s character had a name, I’d be hard pressed to give him the nod over Noonan’s Cain… especially considering Cain was able to dismantle the seemingly indestructible RoboCop!

DEATH WISH 4 – 0.5     ROBOCOP 2 – 1.5

THE DIRTY COPS

Both Death Wish 4: The Crackdown and RoboCop 2 feature cops on the take. Stephen Lee’s Officer Duffy finds himself under Cain’s thumb due to a bad Nuke habit. Soon-Tek Oh’s Detective Phil Nozaki was selling out his profession in order to one day retire comfortably. So who is the dirtier cop? I say Phil Nozaki all day long. Duffy’s poor life choices forced him to be a dirty cop but Nozaki wanted to be a dirty cop and was profiting nicely from it.

DEATH WISH 4 – 1.5     ROBOCOP 2 – 1.5

THE TOUGH CHICKS

Newspaper reporter Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz) desperately wanted to be a tough chick. After her daughter Erica dies of a drug overdose, she takes the advice of her boyfriend Paul Kersey and convinces her editor to let her do a hard hitting expose on the drug trade in Los Angeles like she was Lois Freakin’ Lane. But Karen finds herself in over her head sooner than later and eventually finds herself dead at the hands of John P. Ryan’s unnamed villainous character.

On the other hand there is Officer Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen). Lewis did not just want to be a tough chick, she was trained to be a tough chick! Lewis shows absolutely no fear facing off with the robotic version of Cain during the big RoboCop vs. RoboCain batle.

DEATH WISH 4 – 1.5    ROBOCOP 2 – 2.5

KILL COUNT

Paul Kersey may have been manipulated by impostor Nathan White into killing drug dealers… but Kersey was still killing drug dealers! A lot of them. 38 to be exact! That is nearly triple the 13 kills that RoboCop had.

DEATH WISH 4 – 2.5    ROBOCOP 2 – 2.5

THE CRITICS

Things are all tied up so it seems like the right time to turn things over to two of the most respected movie related web sites on the Internet, Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb.

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown has a 39% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, besting RoboCop 2‘s 36% approval rating.

But the script is flipped over on IMDb, with RoboCop 2‘s 5.8 rating beating Death Wish 4‘s 5.4 rating. And we are STILL all tied up.

DEATH WISH 4 – 3.5    ROBOCOP 2 – 3.5

THE NAME GAME BONUS ROUND

One of my guilty movie pleasures is when the title of the movie is said during the course of the film… but this becomes nearly impossible for a sequel to pull off. Well RoboCop 2 did the nearly impossible when The Old Man (Dan O’Herlihy) takes a look at some of the prototypes OCP has designed as a follow up to their original RoboCop design.

For accomplishing this rare feat, RoboCop 2 gets the bonus point and the win!

FINAL SCORE: DEATH WISH 4 – 3.5    ROBOCOP 2 – 4.5