RoboCop 3

BUY

General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1, non-16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1993	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	100:23 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Fred Dekker
Studio Distributor	Columbia TriStar	Starring	Robert Burke Nancy Allen  Rip Torn
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Basil Poledouris

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256 Kb/s)  French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256 Kb/s)  German (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256 Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is a bad film made even worse by the fact that everyone was taking the whole thing so damn seriously. The story is a load of clichéd rubbish, there would appear to be not a single member of the cast with any acting ability whatsoever and the direction from Fred Dekker is without aim or merit. The special effects are anything but special and at one point I swear that I could see the wire used to hoist the ninja into the air.

    I will not call what passes for a story here "the plot" because that is seriously overstating the mark and borders on breaching the Trade Practices Act. Suffice to say that our metallic cyborg friend is unfortunately back for a third episode, this time fighting the evils of big business hell-bent on eliminating the entire population of one suburb in Detroit in order to proceed with a glittering urban redevelopment, through fair means or foul - usually the latter. It will come as no surprise that our metallic friend fights the good fight and wins the day.

    This is dross of the highest order and I am at a loss to even come up with a single redeeming feature about the film. Judging by the response of the voters on the Internet Movie Database, I am far from alone in that regard. It just puzzles me tremendously that distributors plump for putting this sort of dross on DVD, an apparently quite expensive exercise in itself, with the expectation of making a dollar out of it. If they are going to commit serious dollars to the mastering of a DVD, surely it makes more sense to do so with a film that is liable to actually sell in enough numbers to make the exercise worthwhile - and to provide incentive in the marketplace. I cannot see the release of this effort making people suddenly get up and rush out in droves to buy DVD players. Obviously I must be missing something too damn obvious about the home video industry.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    Whilst this is sharper than a VHS tape, this is by no means an especially sharp nor well defined transfer, and it is not exactly what I would call a clear transfer either. At times the transfer seems to lack depth and gives a distinctly two dimensional look (okay, I know it is two dimensional but it does not give the illusion of a third dimension). Overall shadow detail is at best reasonable. There does not appear to be any low level noise problems with the transfer, although at times the picture does seem just a little grainy.

    Overall the colours seemed to be quite muted and do not display any sort of vibrancy at all. Whilst this may create a reasonably accurate picture of Detroit, it does detract a little from the viewing experience. There did not appear to be any problems with oversaturation of colours at all in the transfer.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer, but video artefacts were quite prevalent, especially early on in the film - mainly in the form of minor aliasing and minor shimmer. None of this was really extreme but it was mildly noticeable and did again detract from the film (although to be honest, with the film being so bad, perhaps I was looking for things in the picture more intently than perhaps I normally would). There were not as many film artefacts during the film as I was expecting, and those that were present were not especially distracting to the film.

Audio

    Dialogue was always clear and easy to understand.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The score by Basil Poledouris, a name I have not come across before, left absolutely no impression on me at all (much like the entire film I suppose).

    This is not an especially detailed soundtrack, with minimal use made of the surround channels. At a couple of points in the audio there appeared to be some rather weird mixing that resulted in one side of a conversation being much more recessed in the soundscape than the other. Nothing to really get too upset about but it just made the conversation sound somewhat unnatural. The overall sound picture is not one of the best that I have ever come across, and in all honesty is not completely believable.

    The subwoofer sits there in the room quietly crying to itself because of its neglect. I should be so lucky as far as this effort is concerned!

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

• 16x9 enhancement
• Theatrical trailer

    The video transfer is better than average.

    The audio transfer is pretty much average.

    The extras are hardly worth bothering with.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris
29th December 1999