Starship Troopers (1997)

reviewed by
Charles Simpson


STARSHIP TROOPERS (rated R)

Directed by Paul Verhoeven Written by Ed Neumeier (based on the novel by Robert Heinlein) Starring Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Ironside

Seen at: AMC Old Pasadena 8, Pasadena, CA (in SDDS)

Grade: 2.5/10

Paul Verhoeven's last movie, SHOWGIRLS, had a bad script, bad acting, and a "plot" (I use the word in its loosest possible sense) that served only to allow lots of sex and nudity. It stank. STARSHIP TROOPERS has a bad script, bad acting, and a "plot" that serves only to allow lots of violence and gore. It stinks.

Nobody will watch this movie for the plot, but here's a brief synopsis anyway. Some friends straight out of high school sign up for the Federal Reserve (armed forces) at a time when evil bugs from the planet Klendathu are sending meteors towards Earth from the other side of the Galaxy. After one slips through the defences and destroys Buenos Aires (the home city of the main characters), war is declared. This involves sending the grunts, who include Johnny Rico (Van Dien) and Dizzy (Meyer), down to the surface of the bugs' planet. Much carnage ensues. The troops are withdrawn and sent to another planet to answer a distress call. More carnage ensues. After being rescued, their plans are changed to capture a "brain bug" which is believed to be controlling the aliens' battle plans (look, I didn't write this, OK?). Yet more carnage ensues. Get the picture? Interspersed throughout all this are brief "ads" from the Federal Network, which present the picture of a neo-fascist state, much like in Verhoeven's ROBOCOP.

There are many problems with STARSHIP TROOPERS. The plot, where one exists to drive the movie onwards, is silly. Harris (star of TV's Doogie Howser, MD) is presented with a psychic ability to talk to his ferret early on in the movie, apparently so we will accept his ability to mind-meld with a "brain bug" later on. In addition, the first thirty minutes of the movie (until the characters sign up for service) drag on like a bad episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. The characters are one-dimensional, so much so, that when Dizzy is killed, she says it's OK because she got to sleep with Rico. I had hoped that Verhoeven's use of a no-name cast would allow him to kill off several of the lead characters to surprise the audience, but such an idea appears to have escaped him. The dialogue is embarassing and isn't helped by the frequently terrible delivery (I almost burst out laughing when Harris delivered his speech about the need to sacrifice a few hundred people for the good of the species). Finally, the fake "ads" become a nuisance. Although they evoke the propaganda of the WWII-era Movietone reels (as presumably they are meant to), their complete lack of subtlety blunts their effect.

Some people will say all of that's irrelevant -- the movie hinges on the battle scenes. So what about those battle scenes? Well, I admit the effects are good -- the bugs move about quite convincingly, especially when they have been deprived of a few of their limbs. And people have their brains blown out, their limbs cut off, and their bodies ripped in two in quite impressive ways. But this is my problem. The entertainment value of the film rests almost entirely on its graphic portrayal of gore, and its continous attempt to gross us out (starting early on when Richards' character vomits on-screen). Verhoeven appears to be trying to make a movie employing the elements that made a ROBOCOP a success, but fails spectacularly. While ROBOCOP had a message about the importance of being human, and gave the bad guys some motivation, STARSHIP TROOPERS lacks even these simple features. When the brain bug sucks out a character's brain near the end of the film, it's merely an analogy for what the film has done to us.

This film is full of graphic violence and is not suitable for children under 16.


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