It's difficult to imagine a summer film programmed more cynically than this repugnant sequel. Three years ago, director Paul Verhoeven made something vividly satirical and scary with the futuristic tale of Alex J. Murphy (Peter Weller), a Detroit cop killed on duty and transformed by an evil corporation into a law-and-order cyborg, RoboCop. Weller's soulful eyes, peering through his visor, suggested feelings that hadn't died — the man was still fighting the machine.

From the looks of things, director Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back) and screenwriters Frank Miller (author of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) and Walon Green (The Wild Bunch) didn't know what to do for a follow-up. For starters, though, they cut out the human drama. After a brief scene in which Murphy parks outside his home to sneak a glance at his wife and son, action obliterates feeling. Bodies are blown up in lip-licking close-ups. On the streets, hookers grind their heels into men's eyeballs to steal money for "Nuke," a new designer drug injected into the neck. A foulmouthed twelve-year-old boy plots murder; a little girl breaks an old man's kneecaps with a baseball bat. And when Murphy comes up against his ultimate enemy, who is it? A bigger, badder machine. RoboCop 2 is all machine, and it's all vile.

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.