Subject: Review: Starship Troopers (1997)

From: Ralph Beard <[email-masked]>
Date: 3 Feb 1998 05:48:07 GMT

Review: Starship Troopers
Directed By Paul Verhoeven
Reviewed by Ralph "Leechboy" Beard

Plot - Bugs threaten Earth. Men kill bugs. Much zaniness ensues
Rating ***/12 stars or 7.5 (You decide)
Review -
Before I start the review I must say this, I saw this with just about the
perfect film crowd - Enthusiastic, cheering, sci-fi movie lovers ready to
suspend disbelief. This is just what you need to really enjoy Starship
Troopers, and I must say I did.
 I was fully expecting Verhoeven to go all Speilberg and do a serious movie,
especially after the mess that was Showgirls. Fat chance, Verhoeven returned
back to the genre that got him into the A-list, violent tongue-in-cheek
sci-fi. Starship Troopers has all the hallmarks of Verhoeven’s previous
forays Robocop and Total Recall dumb storyline interjected with sharp barbs
directed at the media and government.
 Based on 1950’s thinly veiled anti-communist (Change “Bugs” for “Commies”
in the dialogue and you’ll see) sci-fi novel by Robert A. Heinlein. Starship
Troopers is filled with macho characters spewing forth “Kill em all” style
phrases, and, if not for ads, this would have been the cheesiest pro-war
flick since Green Berets. ST’s best scenes involve the army’s Join Up
propaganda, hilarious 1-2 minute ads that serve to inform us about the story
while sending up the “War is good” theme that engulfs the rest of the film.
 I enjoyed Starship Troopers immensely, as did six of the seven people I saw
it with. The seventh, lets call him “The Fool”, was less enthusiastic, and
when I asked him what he thought of the flick, it went something like this –
“The special effects were better than the cast”
True, the cast is not exactly As Good As It Gets; however this isn’t exactly
Hamlet. This is a big bug movie; all it needs it some good looking people to
attack the bugs. It has them, Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyers, Denise Richards,
etc. are okay, they didn’t annoy me, that’s all I ask of them. There were
memorable performances however from Michael Ironside as the hard-as-nails
team leader, and very surprisingly from Clancy Brown in his first good role
since Highlander, as the tough drill instructor (Mind you, there’s been a
hell of a lot of good parts for drill instructors, eg Lee Ermey in Full
Metal Jacket, Viggo Mortenson in GI Jane, Warren Oates in Stripes and Louis
Gosset Jr. in Officer and A Gentlemen).
The effects are what make the movie, and they are astounding to look at, the
bugs are awesome and the explosion fantastic. There is no doubt in my mind
that this would have been a considerably worse movie if Roland Emmerich had
directed, Verhoeven gives us what ID4 was distinctly lacking, death. For all
the big explosions and aliens, ID4 did not show us the outcome of war,
death, Starship Troopers is littered with dead bodies, decapitations and
dismemberments. Almost all the cast is impaled or injured in some way,
showing us without a doubt that this war is hell.
 So are there problems with Starship Troopers? Sure, it starts off slowly, I
would have deleted all the scenes with Van Dien's parents, some more
dramatic sequences don’t work and the ending is a bit of a let down but
through all of this I just kept remembering that Starship Troopers is a big
dumb sci-fi flick. It’s thoroughly enjoyable, yes, but I’m not going to be
holding my breath for the best script Oscar for it. The point is - I had FUN
watching it, something that hasn’t happened for me at the movies in a long
time.