Tropas Estelares 3

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.

It's obvious to me that the makers of Starship Troopers 2 simply did not understand the original Starship Troopers movie. Starship Troopers was a great social satire, and is more relevant today than it ever was before. The makers of Starship Troopers 2 thought it was just a dumb war action flick and created their sequel based on that assumption.

But Starship Troopers was not a movie about a war; it was a movie about the society which waged this war.

The people who made Starship Trooper 3 did not make the same mistake. They understood the appeal and the message of Starship Troopers, ignored the abysmal second part, and made a true sequel, even expanding on a lot of the themes started in the original.

If you liked Starship Troopers but did not like the second part, give this one a try (and if you haven't seen part 2, simply assume that Starship Troopers 2 never happened and go straight to 3). You will not be disappointed.

I tell ya I was dying to see this movie when I heard it was going to be released and it is a mixed bag. The Starship Troopers universe is explored in more detail - we see more of the Federation and their behind the scenes antics plus we also get to see what Rico is up to nowadays. You can tell Casper Van Dien has aged from the first movie, but he does such a good job in his role. You can tell his character has been amongst ongoing struggles and has such a commanding presence. And yes he gets his gear off once again (phew, I was hoping). The supporting cast is OK - the Admiral is excellently bitchy and authoritative and the Pilot was very tough and yet feminine, but the rest were merely bodies to fill the screen, in my opinion. The film does touch on a bit of this and a bit of that, but just falls short of feeling substantial, what the first film achieved so successfully. The special effects are adequate for the budget and often look quite OK - there are also a few gory moments for those into exploding heads and such. Probably the most disappointing aspect was not the fact that the ending was awfully soppy, clichéd and predictably going to lend itself for a sequel, but that the Marauder element was so miniscule that if you blinked you'd miss it (relative to the remaining bulk of the film). Hopefully in the next film they push the marauders more and don't get bogged down in too much unnecessary dialogue. But overall Starship Troopers 3 is a worthy watch and a decent followup to the other films. Thankyou for coming back to the series Casper, that's all I can say :)

I'm already wondering, minutes after the credits rolled why i kept watching. Maybe it's just cos i was expecting it to get better and it never did. Maybe its cos i was waiting for the great action and gore scenes i saw back in Starship Troopers 1.

Where to begin with the bad? What stands out most is the incredibly, laughably and undeniably the worst special effects I've seen in any film made in the past 10 years. Starship Troopers 1 was light years ahead of this. The scene where the Q-Bomb takes out the bug planet actually made me think "WTF" and burst out laughing. I could have done a better effect in MS Paint.

The acting was bearable but still not fantastic. I like Casper Van Dien but the other characters i was happy for them to die and wanted it to come but they NEVER DIED IN A DECENT WAY. Almost every bug kill was off-screen, clearly because they didn't have the budget for the gore and effect. I just wanted to see some limbs flying off soldiers and crap like that from ST1. All i got was off-screen munching and cheap screams. I mean what the hell? The film was just poor .. Nothing at all seemed realistic and i wanted everybody to die. I was rooting more for the bugs than anything else. The story was just dire and if they could kill 10,000 bugs by building a few kitted-out robots it makes you wonder why they didn't do that in the first place. My score is 2/10 .. 1 point cos it had Casper Van Dien in it and another cos its better than Starship Troopers 2.

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.