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TStarship Troopers is directed by Paul Verhoeven (Robocop)
and stars Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards,
Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Michael Ironside,
Jake Busey, and Patrick Muldoon. The musical score is by
Basil Poledouris (Lonesome Dove.) The film is based loosely
on the Robert Heinlein novel of the same name. ***
Starship Troopers is set in the not-so-distant future,
in which humanity finds itself at odds with the bug inhabitants
of distant planets. In the regime that now runs the Earth,
citizenship must be earned – and military service is one
way of doing this. The story of the film primarily follows
Johnny Rico – a young man who has just finished high school,
and enters the military both to follow his girlfriend (whose
school grades promise her a much better career there than
Rico) and at the insistence of one of his teachers, who
isn’t20above using the school as a recruitment center. It
isn’t long before the atrocities of the bugs cause humanity
to declare war against them – but humanity quickly find
themselves overwhelmed by impossible odds in the war they
have declared. ***
When I got my first Blu-Ray player, it was a tough decision
which movie I was going to buy. I had watched and loved
Starship Troopers a good deal in my teen years, and seeing
it on the shelf, I picked it up, eager to revisit it over
a decade after its release. How does Starship Troopers hold
up all these years later? ***
The film holds up surprisingly well. *** At first glance
it can be easy to reject Starship Troopers as a big, dumb
and obvious action movie. But there’s a lot going on beneath
the surface that you’re not going to get unless you actually
sit down and watch the movie. There are a lot of parallels
and metaphors for real-world situations – the regime that
runs the world is eerily similar to Nazi Germany, right
down to recruiting eager young people into civil service
- even the military uniforms resemble SS attire. And the
action of running off to fight in an unwinnable war against
enemies that aren’t understood… how many times have we seen
this in our history, even in recent years since the release
of the movie? Admittedly, many of the political undertones
of the original novel are lost here (Verhoeven even confesses
to never finishing reading Heinlein’s novel, having found
it “boring and depressing”) but it’s still more thought-provoking
than your average sci-fi action movie. The acting is above
average, although many characters never really get the chance
to be properly explored. ***
And then there’s the CGI. This is the one thing I was
worried about, going back to watch the movie all these years
later – would the CGI look horribly dated (especially in
1080p)? This is what really surprised me about the movie
– The CGI effects, even 10 years later, haven’t aged a day.
The bugs, vehicles, and all things CGI in this movie look
like they could have been made yesterday. And the high resolution
of Blu-Ray does nothing to make it look like a façade –
if anything, it makes the illusion more believable. ***
The movie isn’t perfect, I’m not going to deny that.
For one thing it’s too long a movie – a good 20 minutes
or so could easily have been trimmed. And while we’re at
it, would someone mind telling me why all the high school
students in the film look like they came fresh off the set
of Beverly Hills 90210? I seriously doubt, even this far
in the future, everyone is going to look THIS good. And
if humanity has such great technology and has mastered space
travel to this degree, why not just attack the bug planets
from the air, drop a few nuclear20bombs, and call it a day?
Fighting on the ground with guns and such just seems horribly
inefficient by comparison. Still, despite these issues,
it’s still a solid film that holds up better than most similar
movies from the same era. ***
As a word of caution to anyone thinking about watching
the film, this movie is VIOLENT. And I put that word in
all capital letters for a reason. Hands down, this is one
of the most violent films I have ever seen. If you’re at
all squeamish, do not watch this film. Heads explode, heads
roll (literally), peop le get impaled on a regular basis,
have their flesh burned off right down to their skeletons,
and even get their brains sucked out (again, I mean that
quite literally.) ***
And yet, despite it all, the good outweighs the bad.
All these years later, Starship Troopers holds up perfectly
well. With strong performances, great CGI that hasn’t aged
in the least and a more gripping plot and political undertones
than similar movies, it’s easy to recommend. ***
Trivia: One of the rifles used in the film is on display
at the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Las Vegas. --- Image
and Sound:
Starship Troopers is the kind of movie Blu-Ray was made
for. It’s difficult to tell if this is a new master or simply
a 1080p version of the master used for the most recent DVD
edition – but either way it looks incredible. Detail is
strong throughout the film and there are hardly any major
negative issues in the picture worth mentioning. The only
issue I had was in a few darker scenes, the grain level
tended to spike a bit and the picture got a bit murky. Fortunately,
the movie doesn’t have a lot of deep, dark scenes so this
is hardly an issue. Even the CGI effects are enhanced by
Blu-Ray – and they look better than ever in 1080p, not worse
or more obvious. ***
Audio is almost as good. While this audio doesn’t quite
touch that of a recent blockbuster, it’s still nothing short
of excellent – and the entire film sounds solid. Starship
Troopers is full of explosions, gunshots, and all kinds
of other sound effects that lossless audio was invented
for. Dialogue is loud and clear, as is the underrated score
by Basil Poledouris.
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