Starship Troopers 3: Marauder

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder. Hmm, well I'll start with the good. There was quite a bit of good in this movie. A great starship troopers movie. Like Casper Van Dien says in the making of the movie, this is the true sequel to starship troopers. Casper Van Dien reprises his role as John Rico. He plays the role great, maybe even better than the first film. Supporting lead cast was good. Boris and Jolene played excellent roles. Special Effects were superior to syfy movies but not up to par as first or second movie. Could have been excellent with more money in the budget. They had the right person for the job in Dennis Stotak. The directing was pretty good for Ed Neumier's first directing job. The fednet sequences are good and campy as the first movie. This movie features more citizen and human depth than war with bugs which made it its own picture. The Marauder's needed more screen time and more money to make better CG effects, but it wasn't awful.

The bad: Money and time. Which about sums up the times you can tell when things were CGI effects or looked visually unappealing. The supporting cast was pretty bad, as in they would destroy the dialog or you couldn't understand them too well with the heavy accents. The weapons looked too bulky but at least they were not lazers. They did shoot actuall shell cased ammunition which was a cool thing from the first film. This movie isn't a good stand alone movie which is not necessarily bad but its great for starship troopers fans, but it won't jolt much excitement from someone who hasn't seen any of the other movies or read the book.

I hope they get a bigger budget and maybe create another movie with some more original cast members and an all out war picture. Just my wishful thinking. 6 out of 10, I did enjoy this movie because I enjoyed the others but if you are not a fan of the others you probably won't enjoy this one.

The first Starship Troopers was one of the best sci-fi movies around since Robocop and remains one of the top of its genre. The disappointing sequel 'Hero of the Federation' did not do it justice and was a low- point in the series. Starship Troopers 3: Marauder has brought the series back to the quality of the first.

The acting is spot on with Casper Van Dien fitting back into the role of Johnny Rico perfectly and showing a change in the character. Jolene Blalock & Stephen Hogan are perfectly cast in their respective roles.

The plot follows Johnny Rico who ones again tries to stop the Bug invasion. At points the CGI is quite poor but this does not really affect the quality or viewers enjoyment of the film.

Ed Neumeier's direction is perfect for the film and he takes the series in the direction that it should be going. Also featured is the series satirical humour of the first and is surprisingly good for a direct-to- video venture.

I'd be all for a Starship Troopers 4 providing we get the return of Casper Van Dien as Johnny Rico.

It was refreshing to see they reclaimed much of what made the first movie great when making Marauder. The filmmakers tried to copy the 'style' of the first movie, and in some aspects they succeeded. In others however, they failed miserably. Nevertheless, I think they put a lot of effort into the movie this time. For example, the federation broadcasts of the first movie were fantastic because they carried a lot of atmosphere and had so much subtle irony included. In the third movie, I think they overshot the mark a bit. There are a lot of broadcasts and they do a good job helping to create the film's atmosphere, but they are so openly ironic and sometimes it's almost comedy. One would think the officials are crazy to actually air that (Strongly in contrary to the first movie's broadcasts).

The story is not too bad. If you are willing to overlook some flaws you might find to like it. They even implemented a plot twist, which however was not very surprising at all. What I really could not stand was the needlessly exaggerated part about religion.

The cast is OK, but I think the filmmakers should have brought more old characters. It was nice to see Rico again; however it seemed the main characters were actually Lola and Dix instead of him. Dix's character also acts unreasonable on several occasions. And I found that the cast for the sky marshal was good, he has some charisma.

CGI effects are not very impressive. The bugs seem slightly worse animated than in 1997. So do explosions and the settings. The space ships and broadcasts look nice though.

Music is very average. Aside from the great song in the first broadcast there are no themes that would grab your attention. You would expect much much more of Klaus Badelt after his Pirates of the Caribbean score. Maybe he should have oriented his work more on the fantastic score of Basil Poledouris from the first movie. There is perhaps just one tiny little moment towards the end, where you would notice the music as great support for the scene. But once you notice it, its already over.

Writing this review I feel that there is actually not much positive to say in detail. But the composition of all these clearly average components is slightly better, because the atmosphere was right. It can be seen that this is in fact a Starship Troopers movie and not only shares the same name, as the second one did.

In the front-line of the Second Bug War in planet Roku San, the charismatic Sky Marshal Omar Anoke (Stephen Hogan) arrives with his assistant General Dix Hauser (Boris Kodjoe) in an starship piloted by his fiancée Captain Lola Beck (Jolene Blalock) and they are welcomed by their friend and hero of Planet P Colonel Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien). While Anoke inspects the facility protected by fences, Dix, Lola and Rico go to a bar to celebrate their reunion. However, Dix has an incident with the local farmers and arrests Rico for insubordination; meanwhile, there is a shut down in the defense fences and the bugs break into the facility. Lola and Anoke escape in the starship, but it crashes in Planet OM-1 and Lola, Anoke, Chief Bull Brittles (Stelio Savante), Jingo Ryan (Cokey Falkow), Dr. Wiggs (Danny Keogh) and the religious flight attendant Holly Little (Marnette Patterson) save themselves in a rescue pod. When Dix discovers that Admiral Enolo Phid (Amanda Donohoe) has no intention to rescue the survivors in the Arachnid Quarantine Zone, he assigns Rico in the Marauder Program to lead a squad with six other troopers to rescue Lola and Anoke.

"Starship Troopers 3: Marauder" is a reasonable entertaining, with good and also awful points. The good ones are the ironic Federal Network, with manipulative messages and brainwash of the citizens; Jolene "T'Pol" Blalock; and the story as a whole that is not bad. However, there are many stupid lines and dialogs; annoying characters and situations (the attitudes and behavior of the flawed Dix is totally incoherent, Holly Little and Jingo are irritating and Anoke is silly); and this exaggerated subplot of religion is never funny and does not work. The special effects are only reasonable and the set decoration is good. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Tropas Estelares 3" ("Starship Troopers 3")

I am probably re-iterating the same as everyone else but yes the 1st Starship Troopers was fantastic, the 2nd awful and this is average, the only saving grace being the return of Johnny Rico (van Dein). I suppose it was too much to ask for the return of Denise Richards.

The plot, effects and acting are all pretty average. The movie also ripped off most of the first film with the TV adverts with the line (Do you want to know more) every 5 minutes, Troopers shouting It's a good day to die sir and some of the fight scenes although the cgi was not as good could have been cut directly from the original film.

However its far far far better than the second film which should have never been made. My only disappointment is that if the sequels were not going to be of the same standard as the first film, why bother making them !!!

4/10