Starship Troopers : L'Invasion de Mars

I generally watch the Starship Troopers CG movies looking for ridiculously over-the-top action shlock I can put on with friends and laugh at while being entertained. Traitor of Mars does the trick on this front, but it actually has a pretty good story this time with a cast of lovable shlubs. Whoever came up with the concept of a makeup-caked bimbo Space Marine is exactly the kind of person who should be leading the charge on these Starship Trooler CG flicks.

These sequels are, as you might expect, nowhere remotely close to the verhoeven classic in terms of tone or message, but they surprisingly do a pretty great job of keeping up that same dumb fun 90's shlock feel that the surface level of first flick had: troopers are sent into the meat grinder time and again by incompetent superiors who are wholly detached from the reality of war. The difference is that, in these CG flicks, Rico will get launched 15 feet into the air, do a flip and jump-kick a giant bug to kill it, and it'll totally work. Everyone has anime plot armor and every dumb tactical decision can be fought through by shooting enough bullets at it.

In short, it's close enough to the surface level of the original to keep true, while also being wholly enjoyable shlock to watch with friends. Thought they did a good job with this one.

Whatever meaning the novel and original movie Starship Troopers had is lost in this anime sequel that borrows its main character from Metal Gear Solid. This is not Rico, it is Big Boss. I wonder when the legal battle will ensue.

The whole political, moral and philosophical implications of an society dominated by the military and drenched in warfare is pushed to the background and so much so that merely making a reference to it seems to score favorable with the anime crowd. Oh blimey, they just quoted a line from the original movie! Awesome! As long as it is anime, which means over-muscled though guys, dramatic looking characters, supposedly funny nerds and long slender blacked hair girls with big breasts wearing suggestive outfits and anime haircuts. I swear that the air marshal is Lightning from Final Fantasy.

What we get served is a trashy story of a bunch of stereotypical newbies that get dropped in the midst of a surprise attack on Mars by aliens nobody except the audience saw coming. There are issues over Mars trying to gain independence for the federation, but this is never addressed properly because it is just required as a plot device to get the newbies fighting giant bugs over a planet and for a population we never see or hear from. It is just shallow window dressing.

What is even worse is that almost all the characters are boring run- of-the-mill anime tropes which is exacerbated by a shallow story-line that is goes something like: bunch of newbies wise up under stress to the surprise of their though as nails commander Rico.

This movie is best avoided for anyone but die hard anime fans.

Actually I do not dislike anime, but it ill fits with Starship Troopers. By all means, make a movie in which a bunch of staple characters fighting insectoid invaders. Just call it something else but Starship Troopers if that is all you want to do.

Another entry to the "Starship Troopers" franchise, and it is another CGI animated movie nonetheless. I can only speculate as to why they opted for a CGI animated movie and not a proper live action movie.

I found "Starship Troopers: Invasion" to be entertaining, and it was a definite improvement on the "Starship Troopers: Roughneck" animated series. So I was pleased to see that this 2017 "Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars" was very much in the same arena as "Starship Troopers: Invasion". So if you enjoyed that one, then you will definitely also enjoy this one.

The CGI was great, with lots of detail and great textures in every scene, ranging from characters and bugs to scenery and environment. It very much resembles the likes of the "Resident Evil" CGI animated movies in style of visual and design.

It was nice, of course, to have Casper Van Dien to return to reprise his Rico character, although the visual presentation of the character in the movie didn't really look much like Van Dien.

"Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars" is a non-stop action movie with focus on the battle of humans against the bugs. Which, I might add, it has essentially every other "Starship Trooper" addition to the franchise. So you should not expect a complex and deep storyline. You just lean back and enjoy the action of watching humans fighting bugs.

The dialogue in this 2017 CGI animated movie was somewhat stale and staggering. It didn't really feel natural and it was too simplistic, which was rubbing off negatively on the overall enjoyment of the movie.

This is definitely for the fans of the the "Starship Troopers" franchise. I was adequately entertained throughout the course of the movie, despite the fact that the storyline was unfathomably predictable.

Enjoying the Starship Troopers franchise is a hard thing to do. From the excellent Paul Verhoeven live-action movie to the abysmal 2 sequels, the interesting Roughnecks animated series and the decent first CGI movie we now have again arrived at a low point. While the first CGI movie managed to combine elements of the book and the first movie into a gorgeous present to the fans, Traitor of Mars is a messy, hastily written mess, with dialogue so cheesy it makes you cringe. The sad part is that they clearly improved in the animation department, especially when it comes to the characters movements, which looked quite stiff in it's predecessor. You can also see that they spend a lot of time in designing believable equipment and sprinkling several nods to the franchise into the world. But all of this effort is negated by a lazy script, the unnecessary addition of one of the most boring villains in movie history, and voice acting so horrible it reminds you of children's cartoons from the 80s.

Serious funding was spent on the CG and the storytelling, only to be ruined by third-rate dialog. Would have been an asset to Starship Trooper if they had invested in better scriptwriters. I realize the cost restraints and the enormous effort in the creative department and voice actors. But to neglect in spending in a decent dialog writer is just a shame....