Three movies, a live action TV series and two cartoons later, ROBOCOP returns with a made-for-TV miniseries "ROBOCOP: PRIME DIRECTIVES". This miniseries consisted of four movies which attempted to bring back the gritty and darker tone of the first movie, as well as some social satire. For all intents and purposes, what we have is an ambitious project limited by lack of budget and inexperience of the creative team.Our story begins 10 years after the first movie (ignoring the continuity of the other movies and TV series). Robocop is obsolete and weary of his years trying to bring peace to the crime ridden Delta City. The megacorporation OCP, who runs the city, is experiencing inner turmoil among the management. Due to new policies preventing use of lethal force by the police, a crime wave is sweeping the city. From Kamikaze gangs to a psycho in Halloween armour armed with machine guns and rockets, this town is going to hell. Fortunately, they have a new kick ass police commander JohnCable; a dual pistol wielding ol fashioned cowboy cop. Oh, and Robocop, the supposedly invincible enforcer of law who spends the entire miniseries getting owned.Every character goes on about how awesome Robocop is, every criminal mentions his name in fear, you never see that. What you get is Robocop being blasted, kicked down, smashed, electrocuted and pummeled in every other combat scene. He only manages to take down people who refuse to take cover in a firefight.This brings me the portrayal of Robocop himself played by Page Fletcher. Fletcher is a fine actor, able to convey heavy emotions with his voice and mannerism. He is not, however, I anyway suited to the role. For starters, he is short. As in really short. And the bulky oversized armour only makes him look shorter. Everyone including the old female scientist is taller than him. His Robocop is a stumbling dwarf, always marching with his fists balled up. On the flip side, with his helmet off, Robocop looks like an old man and even acts like one. Nothing is done to make him machine-like. He very visibly pants when tired, swallows hard when scared, he even sweats.So a crappy Robocop headlines 4 made-for-TV movie length episodes of the miniseries. On the bright side, what the 4 episodes do is attempt to remake and redo some very classic elements from Robocop media history. You have a new more advanced Robocop, something Robocop 2 should have been about. You have a advanced Artificial Intelligence meant to automate the entire city, like th pilot episode of the 90s TV series. Lastly, you have a tale of a machine regaining his humanity. Throughout this story is the tale of James Murphy, son of Alex Murphy, who is now a young executive caught up in the turmoil in OCP. James must come to terms with the discovery of his father's identity as Robocop as father slowly reunites with son.The overall story is good for its drama. The actors are spot on in their portrayals and it is generally well written with many of the themes inherent in the original films. Of particular note is the hammy Kaydick and the absolutely obnoxious Damien. A huge plus is the miniseries return to R-Rated violence rather than the kid friendly style of fighting in the TV series and Robocop 3.Sadly the execution is less than sub-par. Director Julian Grant brings a lazy hand to the directing and seems to have this obsession with skip-frame slo mo (the kind of jerky slo mo you get when shooting something at half the usual Frames Per Second). The overall low budget look to the production is heightened by dated special effects, unremarkable camera-work and crappy costumes. The New cyber terrorist villains have the fashion sense of the Matrix characters, all tight, black and trench coats. They have cartoony electrical powers and can move at super speed with a basic blur effect. The low budget is most obvious in the Robopcop suits. During action scenes, they come apart at the seams letting you clearly see the black leotard underneath.With this, Prime Directives sounded the death knell of the classic Robocop franchise. Perhaps in this new century of movies with fast kicking kung fu combat, high tech special effects and tighter narratives, the concept of classic Robocop as a walking tank is in itself obsolete. With this sad closure to a once remarkably original franchise, perhaps the new reboot in 2014 would be a much welcome revival of the concept.

The Only gripes I Have with This Is One, The Robocop Suit Appearntly Doesn't Fit Fletcher Page (His Chin doesn't Fill Out the Helmet's Lower Part,And The Hands Look More like Gloves) And,The Story Is a Little too long; However,If You Can Get Past That And Follow the Story Closely, It's Pretty good!I Liked The Part Of 'ROBOCABLE' Which I Think Really Gave Robocop A Capable Partner; And, It was Smart Thinking For Murphy To Be Able to Re-Connect With His Son; The 'Stealth Accelerator' Mode Used by the Rebels Was a Little Cheesy; Cable's Ex-Wife Was devious, But Oh,So Smoking HOT!I Think It Does deserve a Place In The History Of This Sci-Fi Icon; GO ROBO!

Or at least partially paralyzed from having to lobotomize the part of your brain that wants to be entertained. Having ventured the first 10 minutes into this movie I was well aware of the true terribleness of it all. Thank God that Page Fletcher wasn't the original Robocop otherwise we might not even of had the next two (the only ones worth watching). This movie is Horribly Horrific for 2 reasons. 1) the acting is terrible, at first I thought this was just the bad guys, but eventually it turned out that all the actors were terrible 2) the script was awful, it was like someone took a dump, Called it a Robocop sequel and then filmed said excrement. Long story short, terrible movie, don't watch it, save you brain and your money, if you can destroy a few copies so that they cannot plague this earth anymore with its terrible filth

"Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"Apart from that, this was a bit disappointing, too cheesy, too TV-ish for my taste. But I guess that these people had to work on a very very tight budget, so I'll cut them some slack. Obviously there were fans of the original 2 movies involved, so I'll give them credit for that as well.I do believe, though, that this would have worked much better as a 2-hour movie, with better casting & visuals instead of standardised TV series fare.