Rating: 
Summary: Fascist Doogie Houser claims the Brain Bug is afraid!
Review: We are humans. The bugs are evil. A military society ("Service guarantees citizenship.") is the solution to the bug problem. Lots of killing, satire, and everpresent stupidity. If you don't take this movie seriously, you will have the best time of your life watching it. I recommend it highly to society-loathing people with a sense of humor.
Rating: 
Summary: Misunderstood by many....
Review: Starship Troopers was known for one thing, and that was the gore. However the main meaning of the movie was lost due to that. This movie is a social commentary/satire of war propoganda that was so evident during WWII on both sides. While Verhoeven used this to much better effect in Robocop (the media campaign where the public is swayed to accept the brutal methods of law enforcement by Robocop in a series of PR campaigns). However, it does have some impact here, but it is used too straightfowardly (there is little deception from the media) to be truly effective. The story revolves around a group of preppy rich kids from Buenos Aires (yeah right) and the journey from teenagedom to responsible citizens. That part of the movie is fairly derivative and the characters are all cardboard cutout, Melrose Place types. However the special effects are out of this world. From the Armada fleet scenes to the spider like creatures, the EFX team deserve kudos for their fantastic efforts. The set designs and cinematography is also top notch. Just don't expect a story to go with the eye candy though. The DVD is exceptionally clean and thesound is excellent. There are many features that make this worth buying, from the Verhoeven voice over, the deleted scenes and the scene tests between Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards. For extra's, the DVD proves it's own worth. If Verhoeven could have taken more control of the story writing and character development, rather than relying on special features to keep the audience interested, this could have been his Robocop for the 90's. Instead this movie gets a....Rating: C.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Action DVD's Ever!
Review: "Starship Troopers" is an amazing DVD. The special effects are astounding & the bonus features are great. The bonus features even include deleted scenes and commentary by director Paul Verhoeven. This is one of my favorite DVD's and if you buy it I bet it will be one of your favorites too.
Rating: 
Summary: "Study your books, Jimmy"
Review: ``Starship Troopers'' is the most violent kiddie movie evermade. I call it a kiddie movie not to be insulting, but to be accurate: Its action, characters and values are pitched at 11-year-old science-fiction fans. That makes it true to its source. It's based on a novel for juveniles by Robert A. Heinlein. I read it to the point of memorization when I was in grade school. I have improved since then, but the story has not. The premise: Early in the next millennium, mankind is engaged in a war for survival with the Bugs, a vicious race of giant insects that colonize the galaxy by hurling their spores into space. If you seek their monument, do not look around you: Bugs have no buildings, no technology, no clothes, nothing but the ability to attack, fight, kill and propagate. They exist not as an alien civilization but as pop-up enemies in a space war. Human society recruits starship troopers to fight the Bug. Their method is to machine-gun them to death. This does not work very well. Three or four troopers will fire thousands of rounds into a Bug, which like the Energizer Bunny just keeps on comin'. Grenades work better, but I guess the troopers haven't twigged to that. You'd think a human race capable of interstellar travel might have developed an effective insecticide, but no. It doesn't really matter, since the Bugs aren't important except as props for the interminable action scenes, and as an enemy to justify the film's quasi-fascist militarism. Heinlein was of course a right-wing saberrattler, but a charming and intelligent one who wrote some of the best science fiction ever. ``Starship Troopers'' proposes a society in which citizenship is earned through military service, and values are learned on the battlefield. Heinlein intended his story for young boys, but wrote it more or less seriously. The one redeeming merit for director Paul Verhoeven's film is that by remaining faithful to Heinlein's material and period, it adds an element of sly satire. This is like the squarest but most technically advanced sci-fi movie of the 1950s, a film in which the sets and costumes look like a cross between Buck Rogers and the Archie comic books, and the characters look like they stepped out of Pepsodent ads. The film's narration is handled by a futuristic version of the TV news, crossed with the Web. After every breathless story, the cursor blinks while we're asked, ``Want to know more?'' Yes, I did. I was particularly intrigued by the way the Bugs had evolved organic launching pods that could spit their spores into space, and could also fire big globs of unidentified fiery matter at attacking space ships. Since they have no technology, these abilities must have evolved along Darwinian lines; to say they severely test the theory of evolution is putting it mildly. On the human side, we follow the adventures of a group of high-school friends from Buenos Aires. Johnny (Casper Van Dien) has a crush on Carmen (Denise Richards), but she likes the way Zander (Patrick Muldoon) looks in uniform. When she signs up to become a starship trooper, so does Johnny. They go through basic training led by an officer of the take-no-prisoners school (Michael Ironside) and then they're sent to fight the Bug. Until late in the movie, when things really get grim, Carmen wears a big wide bright smile in every single scene, as if posing for the cover of the novel. (Indeed, the whole look of the production design seems inspired by covers of the pulp space opera mags like Amazing Stories). The action sequences are heavily laden with special effects, but curiously joyless. We get the idea right away: Bugs will jump up, troopers will fire countless rounds at them, the Bugs will impale troopers with their spiny giant legs, and finally dissolve in a spray of goo. Later there are refinements, like firebreathing beetles, flying insects, and giant Bugs that erupt from the earth. All very elaborate, but the Bugs are not interesting in the way, say, that the villains in the ``Alien'' pictures were. Even their planets are boring; Bugs live on ugly rock worlds with no other living species, raising the question of what they eat. Discussing the science of ``Starship Troopers'' is beside the point. Paul Verhoeven is facing in the other direction. He wants to depict the world of the future as it might have been visualized in the mind of a kid reading Heinlein in 1956. He faithfully represents Heinlein's militarism, his Big Brother state, and a value system in which the highest good is to kill a friend before the Bugs can eat him. The underlying ideas are the most interesting aspect of the film. What's lacking is exhilaration and sheer entertainment. Unlike the ``Star Wars'' movies, which embraced a joyous vision and great comic invention, ``Starship Troopers'' doesn't resonate. It's one-dimensional. We smile at the satirical asides, but where's the warmth of human nature? The spark of genius or rebellion? If ``Star Wars'' is humanist, ``Starship Troopers'' is totalitarian. Watching a film that largely consists of interchangeable characters firing machine guns at computer-generated Bugs, I was reminded of the experience of my friend McHugh. After obtaining his degree from Indiana University, he spent the summer in the employ of Acme Bug Control in Bloomington, Ind. One hot summer day, while he was spraying insecticide under a home, a trap door opened above his head, and a housewife offered him a glass of lemonade. He crawled up, filthy and sweaty, and as he drank the lemonade, the woman told her son, ``Now, Jimmy--you study your books, or you'll end up just like him!'' I wanted to tell the troopers the same thing.
Rating:
Summary: War is fun!
Review: When I saw a "making-of" segment concerning this movie, one of the stunt men gushed about how there just aren't enough jobs for amputee stuntmen in Hollywood and this movie has put pretty much all of them to work. Do I need to say anything more about the violence? Verhoeven apparently liked the Heinlein book enough to make the movie but since Heinlein wanted to be in the U.S. military and Verhoeven spent his youth in a Nazi occupied country, their takes on the military's ability to solve all the world's problems are a little different. Basically this movie is a different entity altogether. He throws in a love story or two, a lot of cynicism and Doogie Howser in an SS uniform. The 90210 crowd is on screen forever, but thankfully most of them are hacked to bits before the end of the movie, something that never happened on 90210 sadly. Great looking bugs, action sequences that just keep going and a nasty perspective make this into one of the best evil movies to come along in a long time. Think Robocop but without the restraint.
Rating:
Summary: Neither Al nor Tipper
Review: This movie presents itself as a campy satire of militarism, Nazism/Fascism, and glossy teen melodramas, but degenerates too often into an UNironically-cliched space-opera gorefest, though one filled with excellent special effects and gorgeous young performers--and, hell, with pretty impressive gore, too. I like the spoofs of government wartime propaganda (complete with giant CENSORED labels) and a few other dark-humored scenes, such as the one in which a military recruiter, minus an arm and both legs, proudly says "The army made me what I am today." However, I have to wonder (as other Amazonian reviewers have) why the government doesn't bomb the bugs, instead of sending in ill-equipped ground troops to die. I also have to wonder why a government advanced enough to develop giant videophones, laser machine-guns, and high-speed intergalactic battlecraft can't clone new arms or legs for its amputee soldiers, or at least construct bionic limbs. And was ANY satire intended in the scene where a black soldier publicly whips the white hero Rico, or in the scene where another black soldier happily dances to "Dixie"?
Rating: 
Summary: A good, solid action film with some drawbacks
Review: Starship Troopers isn't your typical action film. Sure, it looks the same as all the other action/sci-fi movies out there, but to tell you the truth, it really isn't. Starship Troopers is more then just an action film. Comedy, love, (sort of) and a bit of drama make this not your typical shoot em' up sci-fi/action film like Predator or Aliens. Starship Troopers has A LOT of action. If you like action movies, you can't go wrong with Starship Troopers. The thing is, even if you don't like action films that much, this still has a lot of different genres mixed in. Its humorous, dramatic, and... I hate to say romantic, but in a way it is a little. The special effects are the best yet. The space ships and the arachnids look great. The bad thigs are that there is a lot of graphic violence and gore. Another bad thing is the sex/nudity. There is a lot in the film, and some of it is not even relevant to the film. (The shower scene.) Overall, this is a four-star movie. It's a great action/sci-fi film, but is flawed by heavy violence/gore and irrelevant sex/nudity. Worth watching at least three times.
Rating:
Summary: dock lend red jeep bark
Review: sensational. combination of sci-fi, adrenaline-producing action and subtle, social-commentary based satire. in the future, three veryvery beautiful highschool friends (well, not counting doogie howser) graduate and join the armed forces to save earth from big killer bugs. silly-sounding premise, but the skill of this film is turning a silly premise into a serious story - which is then given a slightly cynical, satirical overtone. clever film. high quality script, plot, acting, sound, sets, everything. stunning special effects. denise richards. some people won't get the tongue-in-cheek aspect, but for me the ghastly (albeit realistic) propaganda-based humour is intelligent icing on a wild ride cake. intelligent wild ride. "Do you want to know more?"
Rating:
Summary: Delicious mind candy - and better than the book
Review: I watch movies to be entertained, not have my consciousness raised, and this film delivered. The B movie flavor made me feel as if I were 10 again, checking out the latest fare at the neighborhood theater. Believe it or not, there were other great science fiction movies before "Star Wars," and this captures the fun, wonder, and "gee wiz" special effects (expanded for the more demanding viewers, of course) from 40 or 50 years ago. If you are looking for some profound message, go elsewhere. If you want to suspend Real Life for a couple of hours, come on board!
Rating:
Summary: Worse every time I see it
Review: It's unfortunate, but Starship Troopers really fails in so many places where it could have done better. Although movie adaptations of classic books are known to be touchy and usually poor, it's clear that there was little or no attempt to preserve the integrity of Heinlein's story. It's just silly to have the mobile infantry fighting the bugs with ordinary machine guns when Heinlein equipped them with super-suits and truly advanced weaponry. And was there a point in robbing the bugs of their own weaponry and space vessels? The bugs in this movie are just big, stupid creatures whose only benefit is that they're really tough and can shoot themselves into space; it's a pale mockery of the book's vision. Worse, though, is the portrayal of the government. Heinlein was known to experiment with alternate forms of government in his books, and this "franchise by participation" model was one of the more interesting ones he tried. However the movie completely misinterpreted this concept as some sort of neo-Fascism, which shows in the censorship of the TV clips, the uniforms, and even their sigil. Yet in the book, the good guys were as American as apple pie; there was no trace of this dogmatic Nazi garbage. To compare the movie entirely to the book would be futile, but still the writers didn't even put much effort into making a good movie of it by unrealistically underequipping the good guys and pointlessly disarming the bugs. The effects are decent, the plot is as good as can be expected, but there's just no excusing that poor way it was all carried out. Read the book by Robert Heinlein; it's better on a hundred levels.
| 
