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Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The tale of WWII if it were told space?
Review: Students of history would probably be astonished to see the parallels between the war between the US and the Empire of Japan in WWII and that of the humans vs. Arachnids in Starship Troopers. The ability of the enemy to fight strong despite massive injury and loss, and the overall resolve of the humans/americans to win the war. The connection is further imposed with the use of tactical nukes.

The downside: The acting in general is horrific. Michael ironside is the only saving grace in the cast. As usual his performance is believable and on target. Casper Van Dien, from his performance on this piece, if I were to make a movie, I might ask him to build the sets; the same is true of Denise Richards. They both offer awkward performances. Some of the scripting boarders on lame, but the story is solid and there is a lot of good to be found.

Why then 4 stars? Plain and simple the movie is just a lot of fun to watch. It gives the lover of the shoot 'em up film some major action to watch in the battle scenes. The special effects come off well, and there is plenty of humor to be had. (Note: As is typically the case in movie's where the script leaves a little to be desired, they try to make up for it by adding nudity.)

All in all, whether you laugh at some of the acting, watch for the effects on your big screen with surround sound, or you treat it as an academic study as I first did, it serves as a great piece for movie night with your friends.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: political undertones?
Review: Something must have happened to the film between the editing room and the theaters. I watched the DVD with commentary as was fairly well stunned to hear that this was some sort of anti-fascist film. Sure, you can draw parallels loosely in the uniforms worn or the way the society is structured, but c'mon Paul, you failed miserably if we're supposed to leave the theater thinking about the evils of war, class differences etc.
It was a fun, mindless action film that you can sit down and watch for a little fun. Try to tell me there's deep anti or pro this or that messages underneath it all and you're just saying that to think you're smarter than the next guy. What exactly is evil after all? You have to serve your society in order to earn full citizenship. Well maybe not in the military, but would it be so bad for every 18 year old to take a year and do some volunteer work? I just completely miss how this film supposedly makes some case against facism. The soldiers completed their task, doogie howser was friendly with them at the end and they'd go on protecting themselves from an alien threat. Fascism sounds good to me if that's what it's about (I know it isn't okay?). Socialism, now THERE is true evil! :-)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: More Than Meets The Eye
Review: There is so much going on in this film. One viewing will not be enough. This is my absolute favorite science fiction film ever made with Aliens coming in at a close second.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Guts, blood and bugs
Review: A good film will never take itself too seriously. A good film will remind you that you are watching a film, not a slice of reality. In most respects, this makes it all the more fun to watch. Troopers is the epitome of tongue-in-cheek.
Troopers never, ever, ever takes itself seriously. And it does it well. It's funny because it's ridiculous, because it's so... gross. You feel for the characters because they're so blatantly two-dimensional. You care about them.
I mean, come on. Massive bugs that want to destroy humanity? Hardly an original set-up for a film. Throw in some megabudget CGI, some rather weak actors, a shower scene and LOTS of fake blood, this could have been a huge flop. But because it was tongue-in-cheek all the way through, because it acknowledged its own absurdity, Troopers has become a cult classic. Even if nobody 'gets' the satirical undertones, it's a fun film that's fun to watch, with lots of nice gory action sequences.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: disgusting but fun
Review: ok, bugs in space splattering blood and guts all over the camera. a bit much at times but if you remember that its just a make-believe movie and don't let kids anywhere near it, its good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just an Excuse to Kill bugs
Review: I love Starship Troopers. It's an awesome totally underrated sci-fi action flick. It's really a movie made a high school audience but is made an adult world.

Starship Troopers was directed by Paul Verhoven(Robocop,Total Recall, Basic Instinct). It's easily one of the best pictures he's ever done. He's an underrated director in Hollywood and it's a shame more people don't know who he is.

The movie is based of the Robert Heimlin novel. I don't know how accurate it is to the book, because I've never read it. The movie tells the story of a bunch of kids who are graduating from high school. They live an a nazi based society. They all join the service so they can become citizens. They all end up fighting bugs and saving the day. Well the ones that live.

The movie has great special effects. In Disc 2 on the extras they go through and show how a lot of the stuff was done. Some of it is impressive and it shows how much time can go into just a couple of simple shots. All the bugs look realistic. Plenty of humans get ripped to shred in all the blood and gore. The space shots and ship shots are also great. The movie can't be praised enough for it's special effects.

The movie has a great young cast. Casper Van Dien plays an outstanding lead guy. It's a shame this has been his only hit movie. He's great as Johnny Rico. Denise Richards is awesome in the movie. She has to be easily one of the most beautiful woman in the world. It's also got the guy from Doogie Howser and it's kind of funny to see him again. Dina Meyer is in it and she's hot too. Just a great young cast.

I love Starship Troopers. I don't know what else to tell you about other than I love it. I love sci-fi action flicks and this is one of the best I've ever seen. It's a very rated R moive for blood,gore,violence,language, and nudity. What else would you ecxpect from Vonhoven. It's an awesome movie. Don't miss out.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Where are the power suits?
Review: It is amazing to read the previous reviews and not wonder if the authors actually read the book before or after viewing the movie. The movie is a great action packed computer graphics film that should satisfy any shoot-em up and/ or sci-fi buff. The comments about fascism are typical libreal bull spun into a critique about a film that is loosely based on Mr. Heinlien's 1959 military science fiction classic.
While the movie graphics depicting the "Bugs" are wonderful, it seems a shame this couldn't carry over to Mobile Infantry! The original book went into great detail about the training boot camp and power suits of the Mobile Infantry. A few boot camp scenes are there in the movie with co-ed combat units not found in the orginial story.
However, the primary fault with the movie is the missing power suits. This concept is what gives a human an equal chance against something like a "Bug". Replacing the power suit weapons system with a heavy automatic rifle/ shotgun combination was a weak compromise at best. Still, the use of massed firepower made the outpost sequence equal to the final monments of "Zulu".
The movie also glossed over the life change an individual can have going through boot camp and the fact that this process hasn't really changed since the days of Roman legions. There comes a point in any training camp where a person realizes they are going to make it come what may. This sort of confidence is had to explain to anyone that hasn't experienced it. It is shared by doctors, nurses, policemen, firefighters, and everyone in the military.
The other facet of society in the book that was lightly touched upon in the movie was the right of citizenship. The other critiques refer to this as fascism or glorifying the military but these opinions are contrary to everything Mr. Heinlein ever wrote. The global society envisioned by Robert Heinlein was based on individual freedom and responsibility. The freedom to vote was based on citizens earning that right through military service. It is strange to read other people thinking this is some sort of totalitarian propoganda when many European countries require some form of national service from most of their secondary school graduates.
Still, even misguided liberal idiots are entitled to their opinions and rose colored view of the world. I throughly enjoyed the movie and highly recommend it. The visual effects make up for the missing parts of the storyline. The action sequences almost make up for the missing power suits. Of course a "Bolo" would have been better!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: death to all alien bugs
Review: this one packs a wallop but some things are way to dumb. the aliens are top notch and way to many to kill. the battles are awesome and the cast is lively. the part where the head alien sucks the brains from his victims is gooey and fun and Casper Van Dien(Sleepy Hollow, Python), looks like he had a good old time riding that bug.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A major disappointment
Review: Starship Troopers was one of my favorite books from High School and I was looking forward to the movie. This has got to be the worse adaption of a Sci-fi book since David Lynch's butchering of Dune.

God, where to start? A B-list cast of no talent mannequins, satrirical commercials that are a rip off from Robocop, but seem jarringly out of place, an awful script (yeah right, bug farts from a planet light years away cause an asteroid to destroy Brazil), and a futuristic army that basically isn't any better armed (or armoured) than any 20th century third world nation.

The bugs are cool, though.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad as an adaptation, bad as a movie...
Review: I've read the book "Starship Troopers" and its one of my favorite novels. I actually brought a copy of it with me when I saw this movie in theaters...and as the ending credits appeared I turned to the book and personally apologized to Robert Heinlein for it.

The movie distorts things from the book and is about as faithful as James Mason's "Journey to the Center of the Earth." In the novel you didn't have to join the military to earn citizenship, Dizzy was a guy and died in the first ten pages, and other facts I could go on about.

Of course, even if it weren't based off a book, its still a bad movie. The mobile infantry isn't very mobile, the equipment consists of cheap plastic armor and a t-shirt, and the inter-gender shower scene seems thrown in just so the advertisers could say, "Hey! We have nudity!" Not to mention the romance is unnecessary, unromantic, uninteresting, and seems just thrown in there. Hell, if Johnny (who wasn't white in the novel...) likes his girlfriend so much, why does he cheat with Dizzy? Poor character development.

The only likeable character is Sgt. Zim. Thats probably because the man who played Sgt. Zim was one of the only cast members who actually read the book. Reading an interview with him, I realized he must have known more about the book than the producers and director combined.

Starship Troopers could have been made into a great movie. Sadly, this is not it.


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