"Starship Troopers" (USA, 1997)
>From "Starship Troopers" I was expecting more or less a film in the vein of "Robocop". That is, a SF movie which could both deliver good wham-bang action (with that kind of excessive and cartoonish carnage I occasionally enjoy) and a deeper and sharp satire on a number of issues such as militarism, consumerism, xenophobia, media power, economic force and so on. I still rate "Robocop" as the best and the smartest SF movie of the 80s, along with "Blade Runner" and closely followed by "Terminator" and I was hoping Verhoeven would manage to do the trick again.
Nothing I read on the movie had given me reasons to expect a different movie than that. But I'm sorry to admit the movie did not live up to these expectations. It sure delivers on the level of popcorn fun, with action sequences that were unlike anything I had seen before: the second half of the movie, with the attacks of hordes of giant bugs to the fort and the bloody duels between bugs and humans, went closer than anything in achieving the powerful dynamism of the best superheroes comic books... something movies always have had trouble in recapturing. I can understand someone was taken aback by the massive gore feast, but I don't blame Verhoeven for being coherent to his style. It probably should have been up to Disney to market it as an adult entertainment rather than the star-wars-like family show that one would be led to expect from the trailers. But on this side -even if it had annoying logic loopholes that you could not help but notice (how about one of the characters -don't remember the name, she was Casper Van Diem's love interest... you know, the pilot girl- being pierced from one side to another by one of the giant bugs' claws... then joining her friends in the fight and carrying heavy weapons as if nothing had happened?)- I had fun.
On the other side, however, the movie seems to me much less satisfying when it comes to the expected satirical edges. Although I find it interesting that the movie plays as a Star Wars gone nasty (the gore becoming a way to expose the hidden violence in the George Lucas film, where entire planets were destroyed in a clean and almost harmless-looking blast) I was expecting much more than that. Verhoeven was brilliant in dressing up his actors as nazis, as if he wanted us to root for them and yet be aware that the humans' war is an imperialistic aggression (one of the journalists in one of the hilarious TVnews footage mentions the fact the bugs' aggressiveness was awakened by the earthlings' attack on their planet). But the message was there only if you really looked for it knowing what you can and should expect from that director.
The idea of being called "A Citizen" only if you had done your share of military service is clever... although I have a feeling it comes from Heinlein in the first place (but I haven't read the book yet, so I'm just guessing). But it remains a suggestion and it is not developed in any direction. It remains unclear what real Citizens have more than the others... The Michael Ironside character -the pacifist teacher who reappears halfway through the movie as an official in the army- is at the very least underdeveloped and you get a feeling you're missing valuable information there which could throw some light on why he has so radically changed his mind.
Also underdeveloped is the only character that shows at least a hint of depth beyond the two-dimensionality of the others... Dina Meier's Dizzy is the only major character that you feel you'd be interested to know more about. Also, Meier is the only face which does not make her look like a close relative of Barbie and Ken... I would not be surprised in seeing her coming up again with or without Verhoeven in juicier roles... as it happened to one Sharon Stone before her...
alberto.farina@iol.it
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