स्टारशिप ट्रूपर्स 2: हीरो ऑफ़ द फेडरेशन

From the very first frame of this film to the very last, it's completely obvious that it's a B-movie. A modern, low-budget, direct-to-video no less, action-B-movie. As a follow-up to the first, it's very bad. It turns the plot and theme of the first completely around. The plot is lame, and very unoriginal. The acting is horrible; there were times when it felt like a comedy, or a parody of the first. The characters are badly written cliches, derived from war movies and other B-movies. The cinematography is amateurish and lesser than that of the typical level of early film-student test film(believe me, it really is that bad). The director(or possibly the director of photography, or maybe the cameramen) seems to have a fetish for pointless and very quick zooming shots, and there seems to be quite a lot of camera angles that are zoomed much too far in. I also hated a few of the pan shots, but there were not as many as the zoom shots, and they were somewhat far between. The special effects are quite awful, though there were one or two effects that looked decent. The heroism and stereotyping of the main character/hero is ludicrous. I couldn't stop laughing at the scenes where he tries to look heroic. The whole film is quite laughable. The attempts at humor are cringe-worthy, and almost every scene that is supposed to inspire fear, tension or horror, inspired laughter and mockery instead. The dialog is ridiculous, and very badly written. The action is tame and never really intense. The horror elements are derivative of several much better movies, and generally don't work like they're supposed to, for various reasons(bad special effects,bad acting, bad camera angle). I know that this was direct-to-video, low-budget, and was possibly even intended as a B-movie, but come on, you can do better than this. Almost anyone could. I would guess that, given the same budget(about six million dollars, I think), I could have supplied a better, more interesting 90 minute flick. None of the limitations can be used to excuse how bad the film is. Direct-to-video? Please. So was Children of the Corn IV and American Psycho 2, and at least they were somewhat entertaining and much more professionally made. Low budget? Two words: El Mariachi. B-movie? Honestly... there are plenty of much more entertaining B-movies out there. Take Barb Wire, for example. All in all, a pretty bad film, but fans of B-movies might enjoy it. I recommend this only to fans of B-movies, and people who wished the first had been more like a B-movie. Fans of the first should stay away. I don't regret watching this, though. It was good for a laugh, and knowing that it's so bad is better than wondering about it. If you somehow, as a fan of the first, see this movie, try to think of it as comic relief, a spoof of the first. It'll soften the blow. 1/10

This movie is unwatchable. I found every single feature of it to be revolting.

For one, we have the effects. Every single bullet shot is a lame CGed blue pulse.

Two, they obviously didn't have anybody research military tactics. When the bugs are about to attack, instead of holding out inside the base and killing the bugs in hemmed-in territory (a la Sun Tsu), they move outside the base and massively expand their front. When the troops send a runner to inform someone that the bugs were coming, they send a heavy weapons operator, complete with his heavy gun.

Moreover, the behavior of the General is completely stupid. He acts like a Corporal at BEST.

The music is VERY poorly chosen, and never fits the scenes. Foreshadowing is very overt. Even the directing is shoddy... when the psychic fellow hallucinates, they use very ambiguous effects to signify it.

Please, avoid this movie at ALL COSTS. I swear, it couldn't have cost more than $50,000 to make...

Not since Adonal Foyle has 6 million dollars been more wasted. I generally sit through an entire movie no matter how terrible: see Mr. Wrong, but this movie pushed me to the breaking point. I fully understand that "we're in it for the species" and with the amount of fornicating in this film procreation seemed mandatory but the mobile infantry has to be good for more then just this. What would Rico think? I'm only glad that Flores and Lt. Ratjack didn't live to see this abomination. Starship Troopers 2 is a Species meets a massive pile of elephant crap. Every soldier is infected w/ a parasite and apparently the only method by which the parasite is transfered is w/ gratuitous sex scenes. I emplore the Federation to go back to Planet P, use Neil Patrick Harris to find the brain, and end this before we are cursed w/ Starshp Troopers 3. Please if you value your time and sanity avoid Starship Troopers 2 at all cost for watching the entire movie will leave you feeling like the enson from the SS Roger Miller after his encounter w/ a brain.

I wouldn't say this was a disappointment from the point of view of being a feeble follow up to the original which, satire or not, wasn't *that* great. I would say the disappointment comes more from internal flaws. On the surface this is far better than most DTVs, several aspects of the production cleverly mask the film's low budget, and initially you might be forgiven for thinking it was a theatrical release. Unfortunately four fairly major flaws quickly arise: 1) The film is very boring 2) It doesn't make a lot of sense 3) Even if it was interesting and made sense it would be hard to tell because the camera wont stay still for five seconds 4) If the camera stayed still for five seconds you might not notice because the lighting is so poor.

So, not really worth bothering with then.

I mean, really now. Flood the market with a good name... 2 Million people each spending 3 dollars to rent this movie, and you have made your budget. Easy right. Easy for the filmmaker. This movie was the equivalent of putting out a LOTR movie made with stick figures. Just terrible. I'm sorry, but there is something seriously unethical about doing this sort of thing to the consumer... But they don't care, all they want is stupid money.

And that's a good hour and 20 minutes of my life I'll never get back... Thanks. Seriously consider not buying, or renting this movie. This movie was quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. Yet because of this it still lingers in my mind. Not cool. And I will forever remember the horridness of it. Unnecessarily gory, horribly dark action scenes where you can not see more than 3 bugs at a time, and really, really, really cheesy guns... "Hey, let's fire light at the bugs, maybe that will scare them!!!" "OK!!!11!!1!" Like really, are blanks that expensive?