Starship Troopers

Directed by: Paul Verhoeven

Starring: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey & Neil Patrick Harris

Sci-fi and horror have always gone hand in hand, there’s something about it that just works, alien movies in-particular, but alien bugs?

Having not seen Total Recall in a while, the only comments I could give on director Paul Verhoevens’ previous work would entail a snappy quip about Sharon Stones snatch, so I’ll just cut to the chase.

Starship Troopers is plain and simply a none stop, alien ass kicking, thrill ride. Think Aliens only not so dark and with a pride swelling political overtone to it…Want to know more?

Starship Troopers is set in a future where mans greatest enemy is a race of big ass alien bugs that want nothing more then to kill off the human race.

After graduating from school, Johnny Rico (Caper Van Dien) is worried about losing his girlfriend, Carmen (Denise Richards) who wants to be a space pilot after graduation, so he finds himself enrolled in the Army’s Mobile Infantry, along side Dizzy (the gorgeous Dina Meyer) who has had a major crush on they guy since school.

Realizing that he has made a mistake, Johnny decides he wants out, but things don’t go quite as planned when the Bugs cause an asteroid to be shot through space and towards earth, hitting New York City dead on, killing millions and every last family member of Johnny’s…it’s on, it’s on like Donkey Kong biatch.

Leading up to this review I was kind of worried that I wouldn’t be able to come through, you see there are two ways that you can look at Starship Troopers, you can see it as a fun alien vs. man movie crossed with a coming of age/loss of innocence/boy meets girl kind of movie OR you can look deeper and view it as a highly political little number which takes a Michael Moore-ish look at political propaganda, media misuse, military control, fascism, sexism and any number of other things, it boarders on political parody, reinforced by Paul Verhoevens’ use of several advertisement/news vignettes in the film.

The characters in Starship Troopers are all great, they have their own memorable personalities similar to those in Aliens, the badass, i.e. the take no shit marines.

Johnny and Ace are our Mavrick and Goose (though we could do with more scenes with Ace), Casper does a good job as Johnny, not great but good enough.

The only problem I had was with Denise Richards, whose eyebrows look similar to ‘Former Prime Minister’ John Howard’s’ whose own eyebrows are legendary for being mistaken for caterpillars. Thankfully Dina Meyer was there to erase Richard’s eyebrows from my mind, she plays the strong willed, badass character of Dizzy, not unlike Vasquaz in Aliens.

The one thing you can’t review Starship Troopers without mentioning is the special effects, because damn are there a lot of them.

Watching this again in 2007, it’s damn hard to tell that it was made ten years ago, the effects are amazing, by effects I mean of course the Bugs, if they weren’t a bunch of impossibly big ugly moherfuckers you could swear they were almost real.

The Brain Bug is a sight to behold, I was actually kind of sickened at the sight of the Brain Bug, perhaps it was the oddly sexual body parts that grossed me out.

Other then the Bugs though, there are a couple of shots that can be easily recognized as computer generated, but considering the time in which it was made it’s forgivable.

Starship Troopers is one of those re-watchable movies that doesn’t lose its fun or excitement even after multiple viewing.

3.5 out of 5

HELP FEED THE ICONS STAFF--BUY THIS AT AMAZON.COM. HORROR CRITICS HUNGRY!! NEED CUP 'O NOODLES AND BEER!!!