
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 6, 1993                   TAG: 9311110488
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: C7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KEVIN THOMAS LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD                                 LENGTH: Short

`ROBOCOP 3' IS MORE (YAWN) OF THE SAME

There's probably sufficient energy and violence in ``RoboCop 3'' to satisfy undemanding action fans, but it's as mechanical as its cyborg hero.

RoboCop is headed for a TV series, but this by-the-numbers third installment makes us feel we're already there.

As many will recall, the ``RoboCop'' films project a time in the near-future when trouble-plagued Detroit's police department will be run by a corporation, which in turn salvaged the face and brain of a mortally wounded cop, Alex J. Murphy, and placed them in a robot to create a kind of ultimate law enforcement weapon.

Alas, the corporation proved to be a corrupt and greedy outfit, which in the second film tried to finish off the principled and independent-thinking RoboCop with another robot. Now the corporation is intent on brutally driving out the residents and merchants of an inner-city neighborhood to create a pricey Utopian oasis, Delta City. Police doctor-scientist (Jill Hennessy) has been ordered to erase RoboCop's memories so that he will become killing machine.

``RoboCop 3,'' swiftly becomes a barrage of elaborately staged car chases and bloody battles occasionally interrupted by melodramatic exchanges in which the cast punches out its dialogue rather than speaks it. As a result, ``RoboCop 3'' is wearying rather than exciting.

ROBOCOP 3 is an Orion Pictures release playing at the Valley View Mall 6 and Salem Valley 8. Rated PG-13 for violence and language.

by CNB