Starship troopers is a weird movie. Not weird as in "giant bugs want to take over the unniverse and we are first on the list" weird...that i can buy. It is weird because it uneasily balances two very different genres. First there's the "look at me , i'm so good looking" genre from 90210 and then there's the "let's kick some alien butt" genre from ID4.
Any fool will tell you that these two items do not go together...but the director , Paul Verhoeven , is not just any fool. He's a fool with a 100 million dollar budget. Unfortunately , he could not spare a few bucks to buy a pencil and some paper to write a decent script. Money is power and power corrupts. While wtaching this movie i swear i could sometimes hear Paul screaming "More effects! More gorgeous people!" and laughing sadistically in the background.
Hell , i'd be laughing too if i could get away with making a 100 million dollar movie for the 90210 crowd...while making sure it contains enough violence to attract the adults. Teens will love this film because of the familiar surgically enhanced faces of their favorite tv actors and adults will adore it for the outrageous violence. The cast is straight out of the Aaron Spelling school of acting , 'nuff said.
On the bright side of things it 's also the most fun i've had while watching a movie since Men In Black. But i would be remiss in my duties as a critic if i did not say that Starship Troopers is the most godawful piece of crap i've ever seen.
My question to Paul Verhoeven is this:"What happened?" He used to make great movies like Total Recall , Robocop , Basic Instinct... So , at the risk of repeating myself , what happened?
Melrose Place happened , Baywatch happened...and this disease is spreading to hollywood directors. I realized i was watching an episode of 90210 during the scene when the prettiest girl in class barfs during biology. Or when we find out our hero is in a love triangle. Or when he loses the first girl , gets close with the second , she dies and he jumps right back into the arms of the first.
I know this is what happens in the book but the directing is so bad it feels like a bad soap opera. The actors are wooden planks that can run and fire weapons. Except for Michael Ironside and , to a small degree , Dina Meyer. How bad are the rest? One girl gets stabbed through the shoulder by a bug. She has a hole the size of a baseball in her shoulder but , hey! , she's a tough cookie so the next second she's firing her rifle and blasting bugs with said shoulder.
It's not all bad. In fact , it's pretty damn fun even amazing at times. The effects and incredible and there is nothing more satisfying then killing bugs. So , in conclusion...
-The dialogue sucks. -The actors are horrible. -The script is...uhm , missing. -The movie takes an hour to get to the good parts...
...but from then on it's a hell of a ride!
mATTHEW bRISSETTE
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