Rating: 
Summary: Starless Troopers
Review: Despite it's title, Starship Troopers is remarkably lacking of any star power. Denise Richards of Wild Things and Casper Van Dien of Sleepy Hollow are about as close as we come to seeing any farmilar faces. But not to fret, this is intention on the part of director Paul Verhoeven. It's a gimmick he uses to keep the audience on their toes, never allowing us to get ahead of ourselves by anticipating the next character to meet their demise. By doing this you connect with the character without having to rely on the excess baggage that a Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson would have brought from previous roles. This also serves to put in persepective the rigorous, often times graphic violence which becomes more meaningful when it's happened to someone whom you've invested an emotional interest. After about a half dozen or so beheadings, dismemberments, ect., the action can become desensitizing, but to have it occur to an actor billed among the top credits comes as quite a suprise.The cast, which looks like they've been plucked out of an Aaron Spelling soap, is headed by Van Dien as John Rico, a member of the mobile infiltry which is a dumping ground for undesirables. It's like the Army is today, they're sent in to stop a few bullets (or in this case bug plasma) before the Marines come in to mop up what's left of them. It's this same cast system that's plagued mankind throughout history. Just like the first wave to hit Omaha Beach, it's the kids fresh out of high school, yearning for the respect that comes with serving their country that are sent to the slaughter. Rico joins up to follow his girlfriend (Richards), who's a member of the much more elite Starship pilots. Completing the love triangle is Dina Meyers as a roughneck with a soft spot for Johnny, who conversely follows him to the infiltry under the false pretense that she heard they're the best. It's almost Shakespearean the way these relationships fall apart and then come back together again. You have all the elements of a classic love story, a Romeo and Juliette for the Star Wars generation, but even that can't overcome the fact that this is essentially a giant bug movie. For all it's symbolism and social satire, the plot isn't as deep as the writer's would have you to believe. They liken "citizenship," which is no longer a birth rite but must be earned through military service, to a latter day form of slavery, but the pieces just don't fall together. They even try hammering this home in the most bold and obvious way, by having a cadet whipped by a black MP. Yet in spite of it's lack of subtlety the film does make a fascinating point of showing how barriers between men and women have been broken down. You have co-ed showers (years ahead of Ally McBeal's unisex rest rooms), female quarterbacks and even the newly appointed Secretary of State is a black woman. These are refreshingly non-sterotypical characterizations of women, much like what Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did, but it's hard to overlook the fact that these elements are just the stuffing and the special effects is the turkey. For all it's originality, this is still a blood 'n guts sci-fi popcorn flick made to entertain. And to do that they've jammed the second half of the film with so much action that you're seldom spared a free moment to rest and reflect on what's just happened. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but after the first hour was so exceptionally smart and funny it's difficult to watch this movie disintegrate into your run of the mill shoot 'em up. Paul Verhoeven has made some of the best movies in the science fiction genre and Starship Troopers is no exception. It's relatively smart and whips through at a breakneck speed. All in all, it's a lot of fun.
Rating:
Summary: Campy Sci-Fi Action Caper
Review: Nothing really special about it, except that the acting was so horrible that I ended up laughing out loud at it. But the dark-humor, (eg "Make WAR, not love" attitude) makes this one campy sci-fi movie that everybody should own. So what if it missed 3/4 of the book, it made the book more exciting and somewhat more realistic to contemporary societ. (Except that women still can't be on the front lines or register for the draft). So, all you apes that dislike, join the military, then watch this. Most hilarious
Rating: 
Summary: Woody Allen did it better
Review: Let me start by saying that I am one of those folks who read (and loved) Heinlein's book, and believe that there should be truth in advertising. Other than the title and the names of the characters, any relation to the book is purely accidental. I have read the reviews which praise this dreck as high satire and a dark look at a fascist future. The book, which this stole the title from, is a completely different story which deals with honor, civic responsibility, and maturity. The best comparison I can make is that this reminds me of Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily?" when he took a Japanese spy movie and dubbed it in English with no connection to the original plot. Entertaining - but no one walked away feeling they had been given a high-tech bait and switch.
Rating:
Summary: It perverts a great novel
Review: Take a classic SF novel and give it to a director and scriptwriter who are both only semi-literate and who have never read any of the literature of science fiction. Add to that the attention span of an MTV junkie and this is what you'd get. All of the thoughtful, introspective parts are left out and there is more violence in the movie than in the original novel. Add to that the idiot depiction of both the training camp and the enemy and you have worthless tripe.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Special Effects!
Review: This movie that came out in 1997 was big for its good Special effects.The story some-what lossely based on the novel of the same name is pretty good.But if your looking for a complex plot DO NOT LOOK HERE!Its mostly about teenage kids going into war to prove their value.Little do they know what horror awaits them!It has hot babe Denise Richards in it,and she alone makes it worth the time.I love the cool weaponery,ships,and alien bugs.The volience is very graphic and distrubing(in true Verhoeven style) the special-effects make it so.
Rating:
Summary: You have got to be kidding...
Review: The book was great. The movie sucks. Vast hordes of bugs bent on planetary conquest? Where are their ships? How can they throw rocks across over 60,000 light years of space to hit the Earth? The human soldiers don't even know how to use tactics, their spaceships don't know the meaning of the word 'dodge' and by the end of the film I feel sorry for the bugs! The whole thing looks like a set up to me by the humans to start a war (but frankly that would give the film some kind of plot). There are no powered-suits, the training camp is a twisted, darker version of the one in the book and the generals in charge seem to forget that the idea is to win the war not just fight it.
Rating:
Summary: Good message, but confusing execution
Review: On the surface, Starship Troopers appears to be mindless SFX: good-looking youngsters drafted into a gory sci-fi war against space bugs. Not unlike an arcade-style videogame? Beneath the surface, director Paul Verhoeven has adapted an anti-war novel by Robert Heinlein, and reprises anti-fascism themes from "Robocop" and "Total Recall". In Starship Troopers, a one-world militaristic government uses 50's style propaganda to brainwash over-hormoned, idealistic high school graduates (and drop-outs) into signing up for interstellar military duty. The enemy, we're told, are otherworldy bugs hell-bent on destroying planet Earth. Early on, we get filmed reports of Earth being devastated by major asteroid attacks. The result: Earth's government launches a full-scale space war, and our young heroes engage in graphic "mano-a-mano" mayhem with the bugs. Yet it's never made clear who started the war, or why, or who is really attacking whom. Indeed, the asteroid attack on Earth is never confirmed; it's only reported on giant outdoor TV screens. For all we know, the reports could have been made up, pure propaganda pieces, intended to get soldiers fired up with hate and revenge. The viewer is led to suspect, and is tantalized with clues, but nothing is ever explained in this film. Deliberate ambiguity is both the strength and the weakness of Starship Troopers. The movie does a good job of letting you know what it can feel like to be young, brainwashed, and sent into battle. On the other hand, since there's never an "aha!" moment where everything is explained, viewers are left with no sense of closure. Overall, this film actually packs a thought-provoking message. As in real life, ordinary people don't have enough information or time to think before they plunge into war -- or, get plunged into it by cynical leaders with unkown motives. But we're used to films exposing and explaining, and we're accustomed to plots where our heroes suddenly "get it" and then rebel against the system. On that account, Starship Troopers doesn't deliver, and therefore the message can get lost in the heavy-handed satyre and violence.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Probably the most anticipated and least enjoyable sci-fi movie of the 1990s- if not the entire post-WWII era. Starship Troopers was one of Heinlein's classic novels that combined great shoot-em-up action with his message about individualism and the role of the state. What the movie delivers is a badly written, amateurishly acted heavy handed attempt at social satire that just doesn't come off. Gone is the first-person perspective of the novel, replaced by a rather impersonal view that leaves you completely indifferent to the fate of the actors involved. More than one person has said the movie should have carried the tag line "Adapted from the paperback cover of the novel!" and that's about as close as it gets to the original novel. The battle scenes do manage to convey some of the horror of battle, but the bug effects look kind of cheap, the spcaecraft look cheesy and in the end you've got a pretty forgettable movie.
Rating:
Summary: Simpler the better, it's all visual.
Review: There are Si-fic movies that have lengthy explanation for how things work and all technical detales. There are Si-fi movies that try to create its own world throughout the movie, which is limited to only 2hrs. The most great si-fi, including Star Wars, Aliens, don't try to explain to much or set rules for that world. Those things, we can get from books. That's what novels are for. Starship Troopers is a great si-fi movie, not because it creates its own world, with lengthy history and explanation for tecnological pregress. It's good, because its simply good for the eyes. FOR YOUR EYES only. Visually, it achieves the level of Star Wars and Alien series. Story is simple and not too much of complications. but, I still enjoyed it, because it most accurately portrays my imagination of what the future would be like. This movie is simply great. Get ready to visually stunned. DVD has alot of extra features. Great buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Gory. Plotless. Unrealistic
Review: Imagine that humans are at war with giant insects on the alien's home planet. The bugs are the size of tanks and as fast as cheetahs. Humans are puny and slow. The bugs are virtually bullet-proof and have razor-sharp jaws. The humans have tiny rail guns and their armor is apparently padded cloth. Their only strategy is a feeble infantry charge. Which side do you root for? No, this isn't the conflict that the main character is facing. After all, he almost miraculously survives every bloody skirmish, whereas his team mates and friends are brutally disemboweled in droves. This film, taken at face value, postulates no conflict for our hero to ponder. The humans are good, the giant bugs are evil, thus the humans must overcome the bugs at any cost. This is Power Rangers with extra gore. There are little or no attempts to factor in the super-idealistic human society, which deifies war and the motherland. Every character is cheerful and smiling, no matter who was killed in the day's battle. Everyone goes on being optimistic and patriotic. Some might say that "Starship Troopers", with its giant bug aliens and freely flowing gore, is a satire of poorly-made science fiction, but I never stopped to laugh with the movie. It was too gory, too disturbing, and too poorly made itself.
| 
