Starship Troopers

In the future, humanity is under the rule of a worldwide neo-fascist military dictatorship fighting an alien civilization of giant space bugs. Citizenship is gained thru military service. Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) has low grades which leaves him joining the Mobile Infantry. Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer) is infatuated with him and follows him into MI. Rico is in love with Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards) but she chases her dreams of being a spaceship captain. Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris) gets into the highly coveted Military Intelligence.

Filmmaker Paul Verhoeven has a trashy stylish sensibility. His love of sex and violence really works in this sci-fi schlock. Casper Van Dien is perfect as the empty-headed matinée idol lead. For the hot action babes quotient, they have the sexy Dina Meyer and Denise Richards. For a hard nose leader role, they have the perpetually angry Michael Ironside. The cast, the style, the violence, the bugs, all of it makes a great hoot. The CG is pretty good for its times. The spacecrafts could be better but the bugs look scary. There is a neo-fascist satire to it all. Of course, some may love this for all the wrong reasons. I kinda love this for every reason. It's got the grotesque, the sci-fi, the battle action, the cheesy story, and I don't take any of it seriously.

The truth is that this is a brilliant film that, like Verhoeven's earlier "Robocop", is an insightful satire and critique of fascism and at the same time succeeds as a sci-fi thriller. It can be enjoyed at both levels, though obviously it is much richer when the viewer comprehends the satirical and critical level as well.

It's not as if the satire is so subtle it's hard to get. If anything, it hits you over the head with it. But at the same time, it is very disciplined and consistent in not tipping its hand and giving the game away, which to me makes it much more successful and enjoyable than if the satire and social critique were blatantly broadcast. That's the strange and wonderful thing about "Starship Troopers" and "Robocop" -- one viewer might totally not get it, while to another, the critical/satirical level is totally in your face and is what the film is really all about.

I don't know if I'm describing it well, but watch it with the film-makers' commentary turned on (on the DVD version), and director Paul Verhoeven and writer Ed Neumeier lay it all out very clearly: the film is about how war makes fascists of us all. Very timely today (2004) with US imperialism wreaking havoc in Iraq & Afghanistan.

On a technical level, the film is excellent. The bug special effects are top notch and the whole bug society and hierarchy is deeply thought through, as is the future Earth society's politics and technology. The acting is excellent, and the balance between the characters' interpersonal story line, the bug war story line, and the underlying political satire and critique, is perfectly handled.

A truly exceptional film, Verhoeven's best so far, topping even "Robocop" in my opinion, and fully deserving a 10 out of 10 score, which I rarely give.

My title is a quote from director Paul Veerhoven who makes no attempt to water down his political views in "Starship Troopers", a merciless, satirical skewering of those superpowers throughout history who believe war solves the world's problems.

That opening sentence is a mouthful, so let me explain a little further. In the director's commentary, Mr. Veerhoven makes no bones about naming the USA as the greatest offender. In an awkwardly funny moment, his co-commenter, screenwriter Edward Neumeier, mutters "Yeah but we did save your ass in World War II." To which Mr. Veerhoven clarifies, "But this is not about World War II, it's about what happened *after* World War II." And thus, the entire philosophy is explained in a way that patriots as well as pinko commies can understand. "Starship Troopers" is a cautionary tale about what happens when war ceases to be a necessary evil and instead becomes an unnecessary thrill. It begins with some hilariously obvious propaganda satires, all about joining the military (including a funny scene of a 12 year old kid in full battle attire). The rest of the movie is peppered with such dark comedic skits, a lot like Veerhoven's "Robocop" a decade earlier.

Where the film is brilliant (or disastrous, see below) is in the way the battle scenes do thrill us, almost to the point that we lose ourselves in the hysteria of warfare, and only upon sober reflection do we realize that Mr. Veerhoven has just proved how easy it is to become a mindless minion of violence. The disastrous part is that I'm afraid many audience members never sobered up and walked out of the theater thinking "Go war!" Such is the pitfall of making a satire; you run the risk of promoting the very thing you seek to ridicule.

Something very interesting that Veerhoven did was to use giant bugs as the enemy. I mean, who doesn't hate bugs?? Certainly no human I know. And that's the point: by presenting an enemy that's so universally hated as a bug, Veerhoven turns the magnifying glass on ourselves and challenges us to answer why we hate bugs, why we like to kill them so violently (crushed until their guts spew out) or gassed so that they die of painful asphyxiation before our eyes. If you caught the message of this film, you'll probably think twice about stomping that little spider who had the misfortune of being sighted in your presence.

Oh a final note that's a very nice touch. There's a scene in this film where a bunch of kids are stomping on cockroaches. You'll be pleased to know that the cockroaches were fake, and literally no animals were harmed in the making of this film. Touché, Mr. Veerhoven.

This movie never fails to generate strong reactions, both positive and negative.

Much of the negative criticizes the wooden acting, soap-opera beautiful stars, and unreasonably military tactics that lead to an enormous human body count.

But that misses the whole point. The actors and plotlines are supposed to be caricatures of themselves. We are presented with a seemingly utopian society, where everyone is beautiful, the world is united under a single government, and patriotism is rampant.

The further the movie goes, the more the viewer realizes just how horrific this supposed utopia really is. Patriotism is exploited to trick young men and women into going off to a pointless war. The beautiful people are mercilessly chopped to pieces by their insectoid opponents. And the united world government uses its control of the media to brainwash the public into supporting this bloody war.

Yes, the Nazi symbolism is a little heavy-handed. But that's the whole point -- the intertwining of this "perfect" society with such a deeply evil subtext is supposed to be disturbing. What's even more disturbing is how close to our recent (American) history this movie truly is. Yes, it's a caricature, but it's a caricature of a very real and frightening phenomenon.

How different are the government propaganda ads in Starship Troopers from the "Loose Lips Sink Ships" campaign or the "10% for War Bonds" posters in 1940s U.S.? How dangerous is it to have a society where everyone looks the same, thinks the same, and acts the same, even to their own death? This is the message behind Starship Troopers, and it's a chilling one at that.

And for me, it works.

I am blown away by how well this movie holds up after all this time. Don't get me wrong this is a solid B movie dressed up to look like a blockbuster. It has got some really cheesy moments but it all works really well. This movie is campy where it needs to be, cheesy and serious all at the same time.

It's clear they used a LOT of practical special effects wherever they could, mostly in human body parts and blood. This is a very gory movie, which I tend to shy away from, but in the way it is used here it works well. I love some of the lines like "they sucked out his brains!" it reminds me of campy 50's sci fi.

Despite this being a B(ish) movie they do a pretty good job at developing the characters. We see them as recent high-school graduates moving onto college or in this universe military training. We see them develop and grow as the story progresses. You end up caring what happens to these characters which for me is a mark of a well told story. Plus most of the human characters are used as cannon fodder against an unending tidal wave of baddies.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes action/sci fi movies with a TON of gore. Think of a cheaper, cheesier version of Aliens but with larger outdoor battle scenes that give the feeling of scale. Don't get me wrong this is not close to being as good as Aliens but it is still worth a watch.