Review: Starship Troopers (Shudder)

By FORCH F. FORTIER
There are times in life where one must look back on their accomplishments and ask, “If I were to do it all over again, what would I change?”

If I were director Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Total Recall), I know what I would change. Actually, I know what I would down right remove from my life.

I would never have made 1997’s Starship Troopers.

Starship Troopers is an adaptation of a Robert A. Heinlein novel of the same name. This cinematic abortion is 129 minutes of congealed monkey vomit that every time I watch it; I am surprised that I was able to sit through the entire thing.

The plot is, is that the humans of the future are in the middle of an intergalactic skirmish with the “Bugs” of the planet Klendathu. The movie starts off like some sort of futuristic propaganda film, with a bit of interactivity to it, which opens up the plot, and gives the viewer an idea of what to expect.

Enter Johnny Rico, played by the master thespian, Casper Van Dien (Tarzan and the Lost City, Sleepy Hollow), your star athlete and underachieving everyman. Johnny’s in love with Carmen, played by Denise Richards (Wild Things, The World is Not Enough), and they’re your typical Prom King and Queen-like couple in the City of Buenos Aires. Joining them on their quest are their friends: Dizzy, played by Dina Meyer (Johnny Mnemonic, Dragonheart), who harbors a crush on Johnny, and Carl, played by Neil Patrick Harris (Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, TV’s How I Met Your Mother).

They live in a future, where in order to become a “citizen” and have rights, such as the ability to vote, you have to participate in military service. Johnny decides to enlist, only to follow Carmen, however his grades are too low, and is assigned to the Mobile Infantry, while Carmen is off to Flight Academy to become a pilot.

Rico and Dizzy end up going into the Mobile Infantry together, while Carl is sent off to Games and Theory, because of his psychic ability. So the duo end up working through basic training, quickly moving up to the top of the class, however due to a training exercise incident, Rico makes a fatal error, causing the death of a fellow trainee under his command.

Rico decides to wash out of Mobile Infantry School, and as he’s about to walk away, his city of Buenos Aires is destroyed in an attack from the Bugs, leading Rico to reconsider his decision to quit, and fight for vengeance against the people who destroyed his family and his home.

Following this plotline, well you can walk away for 15 minutes, and not lose a beat. It’s obvious what happens. Rico breaks up with Carmen, because she wants to be a career pilot, and the distance between the two is too much, but he ends up falling for Dizzy, who loved him all along. She gets killed, and that makes him a tougher soldier in the end.

Yeah, it’s real riveting drama.

The acting in this movie is so sub-par, that I found myself trying to recast it mid-film, and that was in 1997 when I actually paid money to see it. I was only 20 at the time, and I knew then and there that no serious thespian would damage his reputation with this piece of crap.

Casting-wise, the only people involved in the film that I had any respect for were: Michael Ironside (Total Recall, Terminator: Salvation) who always plays a bad ass, and Clancy “Mr. Krabs” Brown, (The Shawshank Redemption, Highlander), who I love in pretty much everything I see him in.

The one saving grace of the film is that there are visible breasts in the movie, a signature of Verhoeven. Not incredible breasts, but breasts none the less.

The special effects of the film were quite good, especially for being 13 years ago. So the film in 2010 doesn’t look so dated like films before it.

The creepiest part of the movie is that as it progresses, the human military starts to look more Nazi in appearance. Case in Point: Neil Patrick Harris’ getup at the end of the film specifically looks like something Hitler wore out on a night on the town.

The thing that boggles my mind is the fact that there have been two direct-to-video sequels to this movie. Like the first one wasn’t bad enough? Hell, that should have been the tagline on the DVD Case for the sequel.

Don’t ask me why I have even seen this movie more than once, but I can guarantee that when it comes to seeing Starship Troopers again, I am good for a while.

I give Starship Troopers 2 ½ out of 10. (1 point being for exposed breasts)