Post by Quorthon on Sept 28, 2009 2:40:19 GMT -5
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder
Science Fiction / Action
2008
Color
MPAA Rating: R
Directed by: Ed Neumeier
USA
***WARNING: THIS REVIEW LIKELY CONTAINS SPOILERS. HOWEVER, YOU’RE BETTER OFF HEARING ABOUT THEM HERE THAN ACTUALLY VIEWING THIS FILM!***
I never thought I’d ever utter these words, but here goes: “And I thought Alien vs. Predator was bad…”
I’m going to start off by saying that I loved Starship Troopers. The original, that is. I’m quite a fan of Paul Verhoeven’s works and pretty much grew up with Robocop and Total Recall. Ham-fisted and cheesy though it was, the original Starship Troopers was also a fun, high-quality, and most of all competent film. And, unfortunately, it’s starting to look like that’s the only high point this franchise will ever have. Sure, maybe we remember the animated TV series from ages back, or the second film, and maybe we thought they were bad. In fact, the second film, I found to be a passable piece of average, though generally competent sci-fi horror.
Essentially, this film’s plot is a broken mess that is no easy task to describe. Let’s just call it a flat-out stupid version of the first film where everything that was done right before is now done horribly, horribly wrong. The only “new” thing for this film is the introduction of the “super bug” that apparently controls all the bugs, and the haphazard manner in which it ultimately becomes hunted. Perhaps it says something, but I think I should tell you that I sighed heavily as I wrote this paragraph. Thinking back on this film is just tragic. Worst of all, for no real apparent reason, it has even hammier and fistier subplot concerning religion.
Here’s the breakdown:
The Good:
--With any luck, this will be Casper Van Dien’s “rock bottom” and things will turn around for him in the coming years. Aside from that, there is no actual good here.
Didn’t Hurt It, Didn’t Help:
-- There is brief nudity that is always entertaining. Breasts and asses, nothing more. The reason for it is pretty nonsensical, though.
--Final super-bug alien kinda cool in a Lovecraftian-esque manner. It’s also quite heavy on the ridiculous side.
--The brief gore effects are competent. Nothing special, and occasionally amusing, but competent. We do get to see heads “exploded” open and some blood splatter, but nothing even remotely compared to the level of the first film.
The Bad:
--This is where things get a little interesting. There is nothing but bad things about this film. So, take that as a warning.
--First off, the writing gives new breadth and meaning to the term “ham-fisted” with some of the worst dialog imaginable. It’s not even “so bad it’s funny” like in, say, the slasher film “Scarecrow.” No, here it’s just unimaginably awful. It’s unrealistic, it’s forced, and it’s grossly in-genuine. Take some of the worst Star Wars dialog you’ve ever heard and multiply it by a thousand and you have the best dialog in this film. I kid you not. It’s actually embarrassing watching this film.
--Laughable technology. For instance, the handheld communication device used by the “troopers” is at least three or four times as big as my personal cell phone. And it’s not like my phone is tiny. It’s fatter than a Razor or an iPhone, but skinnier (it has two moving parts). For such a futuristic film, the technology in use still seems like it came from the 1980’s.
--Inexcusable special effects. This is the third feature-length installment in this series and the special effects shouldn’t be getting worse over time, they should be getting better. But worse is all they are. Aside from some of the spots of gore, the CG work ranges from generally competent to downright “SyFy-Channel Original Z-Grade Shlock.” Environments are less realistic than the average modern video game.
--Meandering nonsensical plot that is a broken mess through and through. Feels like plots were written for three different films and then compressed together in an unnatural manner to create this mess. Even when the film attempts to tie them altogether, it ends up falling flat on it’s face with new characters introduced an incredible two thirds of the way into the film and no clear direction at all. For instance, it’s never, ever clear who are the actual good guys and who are the actual bad guys, who we should root for, and who we should hate. See the following:
--A trick Paul Verhoeven has used in many of his films, and used well (such as in Robocop, Total Recall, and the original Starship Troopers) is to show the media in the future scenario to paint a picture for the viewer of the society in which the film takes place. This film takes that to an extreme level of obnoxiousness. Each and every segment of “TV in the future” lasts way too long and is so boisterously annoying as to actually take you out of the suspension of disbelief that a film is supposed to have.
--One of the selling points of this film was the “Marauder” mechas that team of troopers pilot to fight the bugs. Let me just say that for the whopping three minutes that they appear in the film, they failed to do it any justice. The battle sequence is dull, the robot mechas are overly rigid, and it’s pretty much the lamest thing you could ever see in a film. Remember when Ripley fought the Alien queen in Aliens when she was in the cargo/construction mecha equipment? Remember how incredibly cool that scene was? How awe-inspiring it was? The scene in this film is so far removed from the satisfactory climax of Aliens that it’s mind-blowing. It’s not hard to make big robots of any kind cool, but this film actually excels at failing to do so. The design of the mechas is just plain uninspired.
--This film makes that dull second film look classy by comparison. That wasn’t a bad movie, per se, it was just very, very average as a alien-focused horror film. It didn’t outright suck, but it wasn’t really all that good either. This film, though, makes it look like art.
--Paul Verhoeven doesn’t seem to have directed this or done anything other than let his production company (or whatever) take over, but still—this is the worst thing his name’s been attached to since Showgirls.
--There appears to be some retarded war protesting going on in this film pertaining to Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. I don’t really care what your political opinion is, or how you feel about the war, but I think bitching about this particular conflict reached its nadir somewhere around 2005 or 2006 and after that, all the originality, meaning, and thoughtfulness that protesters (of sorts) might otherwise have had became banal, repetitive, uninteresting, or generally missed the point. Worse, and don’t quote me on this, but it seems like they’re referring to the “bugs” as “Arachnis” or “Arachni” and damn if that doesn’t sound like an awful play on words to illicit the term “Iraqi.” But I couldn’t be sure. And again, with dialog and writing this bad, paying attention becomes a chore or form of self-punishment, so at some point in the movie (about six minutes in), you mind is apt to wander, and your attention span is likely being put through serious stresses.
--Lame, overall, view of anything military. Unrealistic portrayal of individuals and ranks. For instance, we have a General who’s ages appear to be somewhere in their 30’s, where most actual real-life generals (with the possible exception only of one George Armstrong Custer) are people who require experience, hence age, and are usually in their 50’s or 60’s. Maybe, maybe their late 40’s. These guys barely look like they’re out of college half the time.
--Pointless unnecessary love connection between Jolene Blalock and Casper Van Dien. As a matter of fact, there are a few points of subplot that show up and are cast off rather quickly or ignored outright.
--The atmosphere is severely lacking. This is largely due to the nonsensical and overly hustled manner in which the plot progresses. Sequences simply run through far too quickly to ever build much actual atmosphere. Sharing this issue is:
--The pacing is atrocious. The first act squeals by attempting to cram character histories, backstory, and assessment and meaning of the current situation into a claustrophobic garbage dump of barely perceptible information. The filmmakers attempt to introduce too much too early and too quickly, and end up giving us nothing. This is made all the worse by the downright atrocious dialog, without which, the first act would have been enough of a challenge to understand. Old friendships are essentially revisited, rediscovered, and betrayed all in a matter of a few onscreen minutes.
--The first act ends without closure or explanation. We’re given an ugly military base insanely overrun by the “bugs” and rather than bother to explain how it ended, and how certain characters survived the attack, the film simply moves on to the next act.
--The cinematography is average at best. Overall, the film carries a similar low-brow, zero-production-value feel of your standard made-for-SyFy-Channel shlockfest.
--The music ranges from lackluster, totally average sci-fi/action tunes to generally being a major nuisance. Even the stuff meant to be tongue-in-cheek bad ends up being just plain old bad. Some of it is inappropriately annoying.
The Ugly:
--Forced religious propagandizing bogs the film down and totally ruins it. This is some heavy-handed trite we’re being fed. Everyone who is “anti-religious” is seen as some kind of overbearingly evil lunatic asshole, including, and I’m not kidding, the heroine of the film. Ironically, religion actually leads the team of heroes in the film down the path to ruin as they are led by a man who “routinely speaks to god” and then there are ironic smacks that certain religious beliefs can be “wrong.” Yet, the overarching theme of the film seems to be about the “incredible healing power of faith.” Fuck, I didn’t know Kirk Cameron did violent sci-fi epics.
--Every single character sucks. Not only are they all entirely unlikable, but about the only character with any depth or development at all is the religious nutbag painted as everyone’s hero in the future. Even Casper Van Dien’s character from the original film is barely touched upon and effectively boring. Speaking of Casper, what the fuck did he do to deserve this kind of cruel treatment? Did he expose himself to a kindergarten class and then rape a busload of nuns or something? The guy’s career basically dropped off the map after Sleepy Hollow, but I can’t imagine that he deserves this. Jolene Blalock—yes the hot Vulcan chick from Star Trek Enterprise—also stars in the film, and she’s the anti-religious badass heroine that eventually turns hardcore faithful in the end.
--When characters die, you don’t care. You can’t. In fact, there were some characters introduced early on in the film, and I can’t even pinpoint the moment in the film when they either died or vanished. Characters deaths are that meaningless. On top of that, they’re uninteresting and there’s no depth—no one misses them, and no one cares. Least of all, the viewer.
-- ***SPOILER ALERT ABOUT CLIMAX OF FILM*** This film ends, I kid you not, with Jolene Blalock and another girl actually praying to God to help them survive all the “bugs,” and all the while we end up bombarded with face-palm worthy religious iconography. For that matter…
--Who the fuck is this film made for? On the one hand, the franchise appeals to science fiction fans with a taste for the old ultra-violence in their entertainment, and on the other hand, it’s heavily geared towards Christians—though never mentioning that directly. Aside from Passion of the Christ and maybe the Left Behind series, Christians tend not to be big fans of ultra-violent films and especially not of science fiction epics. (By the way, the hint that it’s for Christians specifically comes from shockingly heavy use of the Lord’s Prayer.) As a matter of fact, science fiction—with its generally heavy involvement with science is something that is often at direct odds with most any kind of religious beliefs. The Jesusy overtones will only serve to annoy most ardent sci-fi fans, and the routine violence and general profanity would tend to be a turn-off to religious types. Hell, the term “goddamn” is used something like five times in a span of about three minutes at one point. I took particular notice because it was pretty evident by that point in the film that it was starting to lean towards being made for the religious folks. Amazingly, it was also said by one of the characters seemingly intended to be written as otherwise appealing to the religious crowd. What the hell is going on here?
--The scenes of violence aren’t even entertaining. Throughout the entire film, there is little more than a “been there, done that” feel to absolutely all of the action, with the exception that it’s all grossly less entertaining than the previous films.
--Ridiculous views of the government system and of war protesters. Probably intended as another one of their (the filmmakers) protests of the current situation, wars, and protesters. Conversely, while the government is viewed as a mean old freedom-gobbling team of tyrants, it’s also seen as working against odds to maintain peace, protect the people, and inspire patriotism. Although half the time, the way in which patriotism is inspired is viewed as “wrong” in some fashion. This is just another one of the directionless debacles which plague the entirety of the film. Rather than showing both sides of various issues, it shows them to us in the most heavy-handed, thick-skulled and generally useless of manners. Nothing is given as much a fair shake so much as everything is generally derided in relatively uneven, though massive, doses.
--For a film which purports (or rather, attempts to) such a positive message in the finale, the majority of the film is awash in negativity and derision. Heroic, uplifting moments are so few and far between as to actually leave the viewer (me) feeling worse after the film is over. Instead of countering all the negativity throughout the story, the brow-beating religious sentiment ends up insulting the viewer rather than saving the film.
--Probably one of the most trite, cliché, ham-fisted, messed-up piles of crap I’ve ever seen. No new ideas are expressed (no, one new super-bug doesn’t count, and mechas have been done to death). It’s completely thoughtless action entertainment that even fails in the basic notion of an “action film.” Even in your basic action film, you have clearly defined heroes to root for—here we have no such luck. This is one of those times when we realize just how much story, thought and depth existed in films we may once have just considered more “action film cheese,” such as the original Die Hard films, or half of Swartzenegger’s career. Robocop and Total Recall were ultraviolent science fiction epics as well, but after viewing something like this, it’s easy to see why those films are so much more memorable, deep, and enjoyable. If this film doesn’t single-handedly drive the final nail in the coffins of both Casper Van Dien’s career and the Starship Troopers franchise, I’ll be goddamn surprised.
Acting: 1/10
Story: 3/10
Atmosphere: 2/10
Cinematography: 4/10
Character Development: 1/10
Special Effects/Make-up: 3/10
Dialog: 1/10
Music: 4/10
Direction: 1/10
Nudity: 2/10
Sexuality: 2/10
Violence: 4/10
Gore: 3/10
Cheesiness: 9/10
Crappiness: 10/10
Overall: 1/10
That’s right, a one. That’s a worse score than I gave Alien vs. Predator—and that movie downright offended me. Even the things that weren’t totally awful (such as the decent quality gore) fail to keep this film from attaining absolute failure. It’s that much worse than the sum of its parts. Not recommended to anyone, ever.
Science Fiction / Action
2008
Color
MPAA Rating: R
Directed by: Ed Neumeier
USA
***WARNING: THIS REVIEW LIKELY CONTAINS SPOILERS. HOWEVER, YOU’RE BETTER OFF HEARING ABOUT THEM HERE THAN ACTUALLY VIEWING THIS FILM!***
I never thought I’d ever utter these words, but here goes: “And I thought Alien vs. Predator was bad…”
I’m going to start off by saying that I loved Starship Troopers. The original, that is. I’m quite a fan of Paul Verhoeven’s works and pretty much grew up with Robocop and Total Recall. Ham-fisted and cheesy though it was, the original Starship Troopers was also a fun, high-quality, and most of all competent film. And, unfortunately, it’s starting to look like that’s the only high point this franchise will ever have. Sure, maybe we remember the animated TV series from ages back, or the second film, and maybe we thought they were bad. In fact, the second film, I found to be a passable piece of average, though generally competent sci-fi horror.
Essentially, this film’s plot is a broken mess that is no easy task to describe. Let’s just call it a flat-out stupid version of the first film where everything that was done right before is now done horribly, horribly wrong. The only “new” thing for this film is the introduction of the “super bug” that apparently controls all the bugs, and the haphazard manner in which it ultimately becomes hunted. Perhaps it says something, but I think I should tell you that I sighed heavily as I wrote this paragraph. Thinking back on this film is just tragic. Worst of all, for no real apparent reason, it has even hammier and fistier subplot concerning religion.
Here’s the breakdown:
The Good:
--With any luck, this will be Casper Van Dien’s “rock bottom” and things will turn around for him in the coming years. Aside from that, there is no actual good here.
Didn’t Hurt It, Didn’t Help:
-- There is brief nudity that is always entertaining. Breasts and asses, nothing more. The reason for it is pretty nonsensical, though.
--Final super-bug alien kinda cool in a Lovecraftian-esque manner. It’s also quite heavy on the ridiculous side.
--The brief gore effects are competent. Nothing special, and occasionally amusing, but competent. We do get to see heads “exploded” open and some blood splatter, but nothing even remotely compared to the level of the first film.
The Bad:
--This is where things get a little interesting. There is nothing but bad things about this film. So, take that as a warning.
--First off, the writing gives new breadth and meaning to the term “ham-fisted” with some of the worst dialog imaginable. It’s not even “so bad it’s funny” like in, say, the slasher film “Scarecrow.” No, here it’s just unimaginably awful. It’s unrealistic, it’s forced, and it’s grossly in-genuine. Take some of the worst Star Wars dialog you’ve ever heard and multiply it by a thousand and you have the best dialog in this film. I kid you not. It’s actually embarrassing watching this film.
--Laughable technology. For instance, the handheld communication device used by the “troopers” is at least three or four times as big as my personal cell phone. And it’s not like my phone is tiny. It’s fatter than a Razor or an iPhone, but skinnier (it has two moving parts). For such a futuristic film, the technology in use still seems like it came from the 1980’s.
--Inexcusable special effects. This is the third feature-length installment in this series and the special effects shouldn’t be getting worse over time, they should be getting better. But worse is all they are. Aside from some of the spots of gore, the CG work ranges from generally competent to downright “SyFy-Channel Original Z-Grade Shlock.” Environments are less realistic than the average modern video game.
--Meandering nonsensical plot that is a broken mess through and through. Feels like plots were written for three different films and then compressed together in an unnatural manner to create this mess. Even when the film attempts to tie them altogether, it ends up falling flat on it’s face with new characters introduced an incredible two thirds of the way into the film and no clear direction at all. For instance, it’s never, ever clear who are the actual good guys and who are the actual bad guys, who we should root for, and who we should hate. See the following:
--A trick Paul Verhoeven has used in many of his films, and used well (such as in Robocop, Total Recall, and the original Starship Troopers) is to show the media in the future scenario to paint a picture for the viewer of the society in which the film takes place. This film takes that to an extreme level of obnoxiousness. Each and every segment of “TV in the future” lasts way too long and is so boisterously annoying as to actually take you out of the suspension of disbelief that a film is supposed to have.
--One of the selling points of this film was the “Marauder” mechas that team of troopers pilot to fight the bugs. Let me just say that for the whopping three minutes that they appear in the film, they failed to do it any justice. The battle sequence is dull, the robot mechas are overly rigid, and it’s pretty much the lamest thing you could ever see in a film. Remember when Ripley fought the Alien queen in Aliens when she was in the cargo/construction mecha equipment? Remember how incredibly cool that scene was? How awe-inspiring it was? The scene in this film is so far removed from the satisfactory climax of Aliens that it’s mind-blowing. It’s not hard to make big robots of any kind cool, but this film actually excels at failing to do so. The design of the mechas is just plain uninspired.
--This film makes that dull second film look classy by comparison. That wasn’t a bad movie, per se, it was just very, very average as a alien-focused horror film. It didn’t outright suck, but it wasn’t really all that good either. This film, though, makes it look like art.
--Paul Verhoeven doesn’t seem to have directed this or done anything other than let his production company (or whatever) take over, but still—this is the worst thing his name’s been attached to since Showgirls.
--There appears to be some retarded war protesting going on in this film pertaining to Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. I don’t really care what your political opinion is, or how you feel about the war, but I think bitching about this particular conflict reached its nadir somewhere around 2005 or 2006 and after that, all the originality, meaning, and thoughtfulness that protesters (of sorts) might otherwise have had became banal, repetitive, uninteresting, or generally missed the point. Worse, and don’t quote me on this, but it seems like they’re referring to the “bugs” as “Arachnis” or “Arachni” and damn if that doesn’t sound like an awful play on words to illicit the term “Iraqi.” But I couldn’t be sure. And again, with dialog and writing this bad, paying attention becomes a chore or form of self-punishment, so at some point in the movie (about six minutes in), you mind is apt to wander, and your attention span is likely being put through serious stresses.
--Lame, overall, view of anything military. Unrealistic portrayal of individuals and ranks. For instance, we have a General who’s ages appear to be somewhere in their 30’s, where most actual real-life generals (with the possible exception only of one George Armstrong Custer) are people who require experience, hence age, and are usually in their 50’s or 60’s. Maybe, maybe their late 40’s. These guys barely look like they’re out of college half the time.
--Pointless unnecessary love connection between Jolene Blalock and Casper Van Dien. As a matter of fact, there are a few points of subplot that show up and are cast off rather quickly or ignored outright.
--The atmosphere is severely lacking. This is largely due to the nonsensical and overly hustled manner in which the plot progresses. Sequences simply run through far too quickly to ever build much actual atmosphere. Sharing this issue is:
--The pacing is atrocious. The first act squeals by attempting to cram character histories, backstory, and assessment and meaning of the current situation into a claustrophobic garbage dump of barely perceptible information. The filmmakers attempt to introduce too much too early and too quickly, and end up giving us nothing. This is made all the worse by the downright atrocious dialog, without which, the first act would have been enough of a challenge to understand. Old friendships are essentially revisited, rediscovered, and betrayed all in a matter of a few onscreen minutes.
--The first act ends without closure or explanation. We’re given an ugly military base insanely overrun by the “bugs” and rather than bother to explain how it ended, and how certain characters survived the attack, the film simply moves on to the next act.
--The cinematography is average at best. Overall, the film carries a similar low-brow, zero-production-value feel of your standard made-for-SyFy-Channel shlockfest.
--The music ranges from lackluster, totally average sci-fi/action tunes to generally being a major nuisance. Even the stuff meant to be tongue-in-cheek bad ends up being just plain old bad. Some of it is inappropriately annoying.
The Ugly:
--Forced religious propagandizing bogs the film down and totally ruins it. This is some heavy-handed trite we’re being fed. Everyone who is “anti-religious” is seen as some kind of overbearingly evil lunatic asshole, including, and I’m not kidding, the heroine of the film. Ironically, religion actually leads the team of heroes in the film down the path to ruin as they are led by a man who “routinely speaks to god” and then there are ironic smacks that certain religious beliefs can be “wrong.” Yet, the overarching theme of the film seems to be about the “incredible healing power of faith.” Fuck, I didn’t know Kirk Cameron did violent sci-fi epics.
--Every single character sucks. Not only are they all entirely unlikable, but about the only character with any depth or development at all is the religious nutbag painted as everyone’s hero in the future. Even Casper Van Dien’s character from the original film is barely touched upon and effectively boring. Speaking of Casper, what the fuck did he do to deserve this kind of cruel treatment? Did he expose himself to a kindergarten class and then rape a busload of nuns or something? The guy’s career basically dropped off the map after Sleepy Hollow, but I can’t imagine that he deserves this. Jolene Blalock—yes the hot Vulcan chick from Star Trek Enterprise—also stars in the film, and she’s the anti-religious badass heroine that eventually turns hardcore faithful in the end.
--When characters die, you don’t care. You can’t. In fact, there were some characters introduced early on in the film, and I can’t even pinpoint the moment in the film when they either died or vanished. Characters deaths are that meaningless. On top of that, they’re uninteresting and there’s no depth—no one misses them, and no one cares. Least of all, the viewer.
-- ***SPOILER ALERT ABOUT CLIMAX OF FILM*** This film ends, I kid you not, with Jolene Blalock and another girl actually praying to God to help them survive all the “bugs,” and all the while we end up bombarded with face-palm worthy religious iconography. For that matter…
--Who the fuck is this film made for? On the one hand, the franchise appeals to science fiction fans with a taste for the old ultra-violence in their entertainment, and on the other hand, it’s heavily geared towards Christians—though never mentioning that directly. Aside from Passion of the Christ and maybe the Left Behind series, Christians tend not to be big fans of ultra-violent films and especially not of science fiction epics. (By the way, the hint that it’s for Christians specifically comes from shockingly heavy use of the Lord’s Prayer.) As a matter of fact, science fiction—with its generally heavy involvement with science is something that is often at direct odds with most any kind of religious beliefs. The Jesusy overtones will only serve to annoy most ardent sci-fi fans, and the routine violence and general profanity would tend to be a turn-off to religious types. Hell, the term “goddamn” is used something like five times in a span of about three minutes at one point. I took particular notice because it was pretty evident by that point in the film that it was starting to lean towards being made for the religious folks. Amazingly, it was also said by one of the characters seemingly intended to be written as otherwise appealing to the religious crowd. What the hell is going on here?
--The scenes of violence aren’t even entertaining. Throughout the entire film, there is little more than a “been there, done that” feel to absolutely all of the action, with the exception that it’s all grossly less entertaining than the previous films.
--Ridiculous views of the government system and of war protesters. Probably intended as another one of their (the filmmakers) protests of the current situation, wars, and protesters. Conversely, while the government is viewed as a mean old freedom-gobbling team of tyrants, it’s also seen as working against odds to maintain peace, protect the people, and inspire patriotism. Although half the time, the way in which patriotism is inspired is viewed as “wrong” in some fashion. This is just another one of the directionless debacles which plague the entirety of the film. Rather than showing both sides of various issues, it shows them to us in the most heavy-handed, thick-skulled and generally useless of manners. Nothing is given as much a fair shake so much as everything is generally derided in relatively uneven, though massive, doses.
--For a film which purports (or rather, attempts to) such a positive message in the finale, the majority of the film is awash in negativity and derision. Heroic, uplifting moments are so few and far between as to actually leave the viewer (me) feeling worse after the film is over. Instead of countering all the negativity throughout the story, the brow-beating religious sentiment ends up insulting the viewer rather than saving the film.
--Probably one of the most trite, cliché, ham-fisted, messed-up piles of crap I’ve ever seen. No new ideas are expressed (no, one new super-bug doesn’t count, and mechas have been done to death). It’s completely thoughtless action entertainment that even fails in the basic notion of an “action film.” Even in your basic action film, you have clearly defined heroes to root for—here we have no such luck. This is one of those times when we realize just how much story, thought and depth existed in films we may once have just considered more “action film cheese,” such as the original Die Hard films, or half of Swartzenegger’s career. Robocop and Total Recall were ultraviolent science fiction epics as well, but after viewing something like this, it’s easy to see why those films are so much more memorable, deep, and enjoyable. If this film doesn’t single-handedly drive the final nail in the coffins of both Casper Van Dien’s career and the Starship Troopers franchise, I’ll be goddamn surprised.
Acting: 1/10
Story: 3/10
Atmosphere: 2/10
Cinematography: 4/10
Character Development: 1/10
Special Effects/Make-up: 3/10
Dialog: 1/10
Music: 4/10
Direction: 1/10
Nudity: 2/10
Sexuality: 2/10
Violence: 4/10
Gore: 3/10
Cheesiness: 9/10
Crappiness: 10/10
Overall: 1/10
That’s right, a one. That’s a worse score than I gave Alien vs. Predator—and that movie downright offended me. Even the things that weren’t totally awful (such as the decent quality gore) fail to keep this film from attaining absolute failure. It’s that much worse than the sum of its parts. Not recommended to anyone, ever.
