Starship Troopers A Review By Jeremiah Rickert
I saw the first trailer for this film about a year ago. I looked forward to the film back then, the movie kept getting pushed back and back and back, and finally in June, they say "Coming in November." Hmmm. I decided to read the book instead. Despite the fact that, in the past, the movie is *never* as good as the book, I figured, hey, this will be a good movie. I was half right. The film concerns the adventures of a trio of high school students who enter public service in order to become full citizens in the the Federation that governs Earth. (In the book we learn that you cannot vote unless you enter public service). Public Service is synonymous with Military service. One of them (played by Doogie Howser's Neil Patrick Harris) has phychic abilities and is sent to the Military Itelligence division (where they become officers immediately). Johnny Rico (played by a unknown set of cheekbones) doesn't test very highly, but is rather athletic, he ends up in the Mobile Infantry. his girlfriend Carmen (played by an unknown, overly nubile set of cheekbones) and a math-whiz, enters the flight academy. They all three take separate paths, which right away suggests that they will all come together in the climax. In between we have Rico's and Carmen's training, which contains the first ever dear john minidisc in film history. In the novel, we learn that the mobile Infantry is the most prestigious form of Public Service, it is highly regarded by the public, and those who have survived their term in the MI are revered...this does not come out in the film, much to my dismay. It's an element that would have explained a lot that didn't really make sense. During his training, Rico quits, but is persuaded to stay on when the bugs send an asteroid which impacts Buenos Aires, the kids hometown, wiping it out completely. Carman on the other hand, is wild and wacky and excells at her pilot training, she ends up getting paired with Xander, another set of amazing cheeckbones, who is slowly stealing her heart away from Johnny. She graduates early and is assigned to the Roger Young, a transport ship, which delivers the MI to their destinations and retrieves them. Joining Johnny in the MI, and slowly turning his eyes away from Carmen, is the athletic Dizzy Flores (played by a well-muscled set of cheekbones who is not afraid to do gratutious shower scenes), another alum of the BA school, she has always had a thing for Rico, but he's always shunned her for Carmen...this tit-for-tat love triangle...not, not triangle, love Rhombus, continues through most of the film. Finally, after 55 minutes...we get bugs...bugs and bugs. The Earth forces assume that the bugs are not intelligent, and this is their undoing, they have some rather unsettling military defeats, and are forced to do a bit of rethinking before taking the war to the bugs. The special effects are pretty darned good, there really wasn't a time I stopped and went "that was cheesy." which usually happens during sci-fi films when I spot a flaw. The bugs were creepy and horrid and brutal all at the same time, and more than fulfilled any visions I'd had while reading the books. The space scenes are well-done as well, somewhat reminiscent of Babylon 5's style, but looked less computer generated. The bugs were overseen by Phil Tippet, who made his mark with the Star Wars Trilogy. The action in the last half of the movie is a bit fractured, there isn't really smooth continuity, just a lot of shooting and slurping and blood and guts, but for some reason I liked it. A lot of the action scenes were done rather well, and I wish I'd looked up to see who the second unit director was, there was some creative stuff done with what could have been a very redundant set of battle scenes. If I hadn't read the book, I would have really liked this film. I think that Paul Verhoven is one of the last directors I would have chosen for Starship Troopers. In an interview with him and the producer, they said that the book was about a "facist utopia." The same thing was said by critics when the original novel came out in the 60's. Because Verhoven was attacking the flim from that slant, many of the details of the society got smoothed over and ignored, in order to highlight the things he saw in the story as "facist." Furthermore, the first half of the film, which represents about the first two-thirds of the book, is smothered in the tedious love-triangle, that just about every reviwer calls "a bad episode of 90210." A better choice for a director of this film would have been Terry Gilliam, or Ridley Scott (maybe too obvious). Verhoven has too many odd obsessions, one with horrid, horrid violence, and the other with naked bodies (see Basic Instinct, Robocop, Showgirls, Total Recall), most of his films are distinguished by their over the top sex or violence. I believe Total Recall has the dubious disinction of the most people killed in a film, Robocop was originally an X-rated film for violence. He's out to shock or something, and seems unphazed at his movie ratings. Starship Troopers, however, is probably going to be popular, for the very reasons that I have disliked it, especially all the yong nubile actors and their relationships, which play like a 90210 episode on at 2am on Showtime. The same factors that made a movie like Scream a hit...young beautiful actors and actresses, love-triangles, shower scenes...some humour... I probably should not see this film again, because I will find more and more wrong with it, that's what happened with me and Independence Day, the first time is was GREAT! The second time is was..oh...good, yeah...and it was downhill from there...but I digress.
Out of the $3.50 I paid for my ticket, it was probably worth $1.75
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