Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

After the disappointing debacle of STARSHIP TROOPERS 2, I was in no hurry to watch the third in the series, knowing full well that it could never recapture the glory of the Verhoeven movie. When I saw it on TV one evening, I ended up watching it anyway, and from the outset I knew it was going to be better than the second one. It has a bigger budget, for a start, and it attempts to emulate the first film's look and style rather than adopting a clichéd B-movie atmosphere like the second film did. There's no doubting that it's a film packed with poor elements and disappointment, but in the end I still enjoyed it - to a degree.One plus is that Casper Van Dien returns to his famous role as Johnny Rico some eleven years after he made the first movie, and the astonishing thing is that he doesn't look to have aged a day. Van Dien will never win an acting Oscar, but I find him impossible to dislike: he always seem chirpy, ready with a smile, and first into the action. I don't know, there's just something about him. He's backed by a cast all of whom play the usual B-movie types, with Amanda Donohoe making an appearance as some commander or other.Director Edward Neumeier is the guy who wrote STARSHIP TROOPERS and ROBOCOP, so I respect him for that, but his work as director is less impressive. Let's say that he's passable. Some elements here are cringe-worthy, like the news bulletins, which just try too hard to be funny. There's less bloodshed and gore than in the first film, and the CGI effects used to animate the bugs just aren't as good either. The story tries to be original, bringing in a new super-bug the size of a planet, and linking themes of telepathy and religion. There's a LOT about Christianity in this movie, which made a lot of people hate it, but I found that it brought something new and thought-provoking to the table, so I was open to it. Van Dien disappears for much of the film and we're stuck with the B-movie characters, which isn't great, but I've seen a lot worse. There's also an entirely gratuitous nude sequence late on in the film which will no doubt delight male viewers.

Nope! It just isn't happening with this bunch...they even brought back Casper Van Dien to try and save the day. Now Casper was once a young actor with some modest potential, but as often happens today his potential was wasted with poor script and no story...the bugs have apparently invented new, more devastating weapons, and bio engineered new bugs, heh heh...but none of that adds to a lack luster script. The whole movie just wanders aimlessly, touching on nothing but grime and gore for the sake of gore. Can't these people realize that producing movies carries some moral responsibility to the viewer?Nope, this franchise is toast in my opinion...

The movie started out on a more or less positive note, even with the bad acting. Even Rico's character was a little bit off even though they used the same actor.Special effects are mediocre, although that is something that I would have been able to get over if it wasn't for the bad parts of the film.There were a few funny scenes with the constant federation adverts with the good old "Would you like to know more?". However this wasn't enough to redeem the film.By the end you realize what this movie is really about, pure religious propaganda, that sincerely disgusted me as I have always loved the original as he great satire it was, but this... just awful... Was this movie funded by the Vatican?

It's hard to believe that Starship Troopers 3 didn't cost much more than Starship Troopers 2 to make, when it looks 5 times as expensive. I think ST3 was much better planned and saved a lot of money on that. Ed Neumeier wrote all 3 movies, but it still didn't look like he wrote ST2 at all. ST1, ST3 and Robocop clearly shows it have the same writer. Did Neumeier sleep when writing ST 2, or did he write that store in a day at tops? ST 3 Marauder is the only true sequel to Starship Troopers, and a decent one.This movie gets 2 extra stars only because it looks like a cheaper version of a Verhoeven movie, and a good effort on its low budget. Its as close to a true ST sequel we will ever get probably. After the disaster ST 2, its easy to think that ST3 is even worse, but isn't. If you liked Starship Troopers, you will most likely like this one as this movie even have several surprises.There is a Starship Troopers remake rumoured which is a very bad idea as its very hard to even be close to par with the first masterpiece. I was on of the minors which understood the first movie the first time at cinema in 1997, because Verhoeven is my favourite director and i had seen and bought all his movies including the dutch ones. Something tells me its better to watch "ST3 Marauder" than the upcoming disaster of a remake.