Starship Troopers (1997)

An Exercise In Nonsense

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Director Paul Verhoeven subverted the subtext of Robert A Heinlein's novel which had right wing underpinnings such as the rights of citizenship and the right to vote not being open to all.Starship Troopers is set in a future where Planet Earth is at war with bug like creatures from another planetary system that humans have encroached. Earth is a militaristic society, the media conditions the population to support the ongoing war effort. We follow four friends from High School in Buenos Aires where they study aspects of their civic society and then make their way through the military.Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) joins the infantry where he goes through basic training mainly to be neat his girlfriend Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards) who has also joined up. As time goes on as Rico becomes battle scarred, he realises the difference between civilians and citizens.The action scenes in the film is intense with the bugs attacking and ripping up human body parts. Verhoeven has always gone for hard core action with all guns blazing yet the film is infused with satire.Verhoeven openly admitted he did not like the politics advocated in Heinlein's book and wanted to take a swipe at the fascistic elements of it. At one point in the film a character turns up wearing a Nazi uniform (without the Nazi insignia) and Verhoeven remarked that hardly anyone who saw the film noticed it!

I know Heinlein is one of the old masters of sci-fi, and the book Starship Troopers, while not my favorite, is a valuable story. This crap though was only surpassed in its failure by the Schwarzenegger Total Recall. The so called Mobile Infantry was neither very mobile nor was it an effective infantry. Their main maneuver seemed to be running around screaming and dying. In the book, everything was done with a purpose. Here, it was just to be able to stage carnage. Giant bugs able to target orbiting ships with their asses, really? Lame visual anus jokes. Whatever statement it was trying to make about militarism, or fascism or women in the military, it failed to make clear. The bloodbath did not rise to the level of say, Saving Private Ryan for illustrating the horrors of war. It just looked like a horror movie.

Being a massive fan of Paul Verhoeven's work, I was very pleased to be able to see this in the local cinema – where the BBFC kindly decided to award it a 15 certificate! The decision was later changed to 18, and its easy to see why. Along with ROBOCOP and TOTAL RECALL, this makes up the Dutch director's gore trilogy : science fiction actioners packed with as much extreme violence and gruesomeness as possible! Verhoeven has a bigger budget around this time, so nominally sets about filming a serious Robert Heinlein '50s sci-fi story. Instead the film turns out to be an epic, action-packed cartoon adventure ride, with cardboard characters and a whole lotta mayhem going on! Verhoeven also has time to satirise those gung-ho American characters but the whole thing is performed with such a love and sense of humour that you can't help but settle back and enjoy the ride.The special effects are out of this world and make STARSHIP TROOPERS one of the best effects films I've watched. The future is portrayed in a subtle way and seems real, even the battles in outer space. The aliens themselves are only CGI, but it's good CGI – especially those huge beetle bugs that crawl outta the ground to burn the enemy! The action comes thick and fast and is loaded with extreme gore. Numerous decapitations, people being impaled, burned, and all sorts of nastiness. The sickening 'brain sucking' climax really pushes things over the edge a la Peter Jackson. Verhoeven takes a moment to reference the British classic ZULU with a nail-biting siege attack, whilst a period at boot camp sees trainees being flogged, knifed, and having their arms smashed for failing! It's not hard to see the similarities to the Nazis, down to the uniforms and the trench coats, so you get to snigger as well as enjoy the action.The acting is the one weak spot of the film, with Denise Richards and Casper Van Dien absolutely terrible as the clear-cut, one-dimensional young, beautiful heroine and hero – but maybe that was the point??! Otherwise we have solid support from the always reliable Jake Busey (making his dad Gary proud) and Doogie Howser himself, Neil Patrick Harris, as a member of the SS! Old pros Clancy Brown and Michael Ironside are on hand to supply the toughness. The film goes on a long time without losing focus, although the ending does seem to be a little abrupt in retrospect. Nevermind – this is a humorous, gruelling, ultra-violent, sometimes sick, always exciting war film like never before!

It is a mixed bag of terrible acting and eye candy. Great special effects and repetitive action sequences. Poignant satire, boring American style futuristic totalitarianism and one dimensional characters. Its worth a watch for the humour alone which matches that of robocop, the CGI and for the bodies, though there could have been more on the female side. It inherits the flaws of the base material and the little acting talent there is on the set (Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown) does not redeem it.Stay away from the sequels, no joke.