RoboCop 3

I'm sure that many Poledouris fans were horrified to discover that Leonard Rosenman was to score the second Robocop film, particularly as Poledouris really captured the spirit of Paul Verhoven's satirical film. Listening to Robocop 3 with Poledouris returning to the series, I'm not honestly convinced that he would have brought anything particularly exciting had he done part two instead of Rosenman. Admittedly, the film itself (although part two was fairly bad) was really an abysmal effort, with the violence toned down, along with the satire to turn it into what amounts to the quality of an average TV movie.

Much of the score is extremely similar to the original, the Robocop theme is resurrected, albeit fairly infrequently. The thrill of its appearance at the end of Robo Saves Lewis and during the final cue are two of the score's high points. Poledouris introduces a new idea that threatens to turn into the main theme from A View to a Kill (of all things), but works well as a more menacing brass motif. The quieter moments are mostly effective, with a gentle version of the Robocop theme played against gentle synths during Murphy's Memories. It's surprising how malleable the main theme is and makes it all the more surprising how reluctant Poledouris seems to be to use it. What sounds like a synthetic pan pipe is one of the score's less successful additions and pushes the music from over to the top to just a bit tacky. A rather horrible selection of synths doesn't do any favours to Robo Fights Otomo, which must also go down as one of the most subdued action cues of the series.

Not without a few good moments, but still coming across as a second rate retread of the original, which I suppose is a step up from the film which is a 10th rate retread of the first sequel. If your desire for Robocop music isn't satisfied by the original album, then this makes a good companion, offering less of the same. In fact, mixing the cues from both films into one long score is quite effective and has the dichotomy of either showing the quality of musical continuity or the lack of invention in the follow up.