STARSHIP TROOPERS

Starship Troopers

Grade: C+

Starring: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Jake Busey, Patrick Muldoon, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, Brenda Smart and Dean Norris

Premise: A young rising star in the futuristic Military Infantry comes front and center in a devastating war between humankind and a race of deadly alien bugs.

Rated R for strong graphic violence, blood and gore, nudity and sexuality, scenes of peril and destruction, and some language

The best way to describe 1997’s Starship Troopers is “dumb fun”. I got excited when I noticed it on Netflix today—it was one of those movies I always wanted to see as a kid because my friends at school were always talking about it, but my parents wouldn’t let me. So I watched it. Based on a 1959 novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein—though I have a feeling it’s “based” on Heinlein’s novel about as much as the last two Hobbit movies were “based” on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book—Troopers has designs on being an epic but is nowhere near smart enough. I described it earlier on my Facebook page as “Ender’s Game on Steroids, minus about 100 I.Q. points”. Turns out it nabbed an Oscar nomination for its Visual Effects, which were probably cutting-edge in ’97 but are video game-level now, but it’s an atrociously-written, lamely-acted, uber-cliché film that’s made for those teenage boys and men who just want to think about attractive women and blowing stuff up real good. Still, even if that was its only goal, it could’ve been a little better.

Plot

In the future, where a space-faring humanity seems joined up into one coalition called the “Federation”, an intergalactic war with the giant insect residents of a distant planet called Klendathu has begun. While not all of Earth’s inhabitants are privileged, all-rights-guaranteed Citizens, one way to become one is to serve at least one term of service in the Federation’s military. This becomes reality for John “Johnny” Rico (Casper Van Dien), a tall, handsome, athletic high school senior who passes up his parents’ wishes of going to Harvard for the chance to stay in touch with his hottie girlfriend, Carmen (Denise Richards). Carmen aspires to be a pilot in the space fleet, and Johnny figures he’ll serve a term as a grunt in the Military Infantry until their terms are up. Johnny’s best friend Carl (Neil Patrick Harris) also joins the military, heading into the science division. Once Johnny gets into the infantry, he encounters another familiar face, Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), a former classmate who always nursed a strong crush on him.

Johnny proves himself a strong leader in training, surviving the harsh demands of his instructor (Clancy Brown), and, soon enough, is a Corporal and squad leader in the field, under the tutelage of renowned warrior—and Johnny’s former high school teacher—Jean Rasczak (Michael Ironside). The war with the bugs proves intense and costly, but Johnny continues to prove himself with assistance from new best friend Ace (Jake Busey), despite the distraction of Carmen rising through the ranks at the fleet and being paired up on a flight crew with an old high school rival (Patrick Muldoon) of Johnny’s. In addition, Johnny soon finds he can no longer resist Dizzy’s cute, confident advances. But these thoughts are soon pushed into the background as the bugs prove fiercer and harder to eliminate than anyone thought…word soon gets out that the bugs can read people’s minds, and thereby anticipate humanity’s every move.

What Works?

There’s nothing in here that hasn’t been done—before or since this film’s release in 1997—but it checks many of the boxes well enough. Intense, epic scenes of combat? Check. Tongue-in-cheek political propaganda? Check. Clean-cut, macho, easily-identifiable main hero? Check (Van Dien defines the term “square-jawed”). Likeable love interest? Check (Meyer does a lot with a little). Scene-stealing turns by charismatic older actors? Check (Clancy Brown and Michael Ironside play their usual screen selves, but they look like they’re having fun doing it). Quotable dialogue, whether of the unintentionally or intentionally quotable variety? Check (“Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?!”  “What’s your malfunction, Rico?” “Funny how girls always wanna be friends right after they rip your guts out.”). Starship Troopers isn’t a smart or original movie, but, being so by-the-book, it at least separates itself with its harsh combat sequences and full story arch. In a nutshell, it’s pleasant, just-watch-for-fun camp, plus a lot of blood and dismembered limbs.

What Doesn’t Work?

Obviously, it’s not really original, and it actually covers so much ground in its barely-two-hour plot time that it’s sensationally under-written at almost every turn. Every battlefield death is clearly telegraphed in advance. Every time our hero might get really emotional, the scene takes the easy way out or cuts away entirely. Plenty of boxes here are checked as well, docking the film points for originality. The alien bugs are smarter than we thought they were. Check. Almost every identifiable character in the film is bumped off in slow-mo. Check. Our heroes’ mentors/commanders die obvious, leave-me-save-yourself deaths. Check. Johnny Rico and his romantic rival get into a wildly over-the-top fistfight over Carmen. Check.

Besides the writing—again, this movie was only really made to show bugs gettin’ blowed up, people getting tore up, people spouting chest-pounding military bravado, and those two scenes where women are shown topless—the main thing that doesn’t work is the hideous performance given by Denise Richards. Richards has been a Bond girl (2000’s The World is Not Enough) but is probably still best-known for her marriage to and divorce from wild man Charlie Sheen; she’s easy on the eyes, that’s for sure…at least until you realize she holds that pretty but bland smile throughout the entire movie with few alterations. Her performance could hardly be more stiff and wooden—I began to actively root for her death, and not just after she seemed poised to break Johnny’s heart. Turns out, being attractive just isn’t enough sometimes.

Content

Though surprisingly-light on profanity (I only noted 1 F-word, an incredible amount for an R-rated movie about military types), Starship Troopers is a hard R, thanks to some of the most graphic sci-fi gore you’ll ever see. People get decapitated, dismembered, cut open, drained of blood or, famously, get their brains sucked out. People also occasionally get melted or crushed by falling objects. The computerized bugs suffer no less, often getting battered by what must be thousands of bullets as their gooey-green blood spatters and their multiple extremities disintegrate bit by bit. Troopers also has the distinction of being one of the first movies in which people my age witnessed female nudity (along with Titanic, which came out the same year), with one scene of the co-ed squad showering and another scene depicting two characters in the opening throes of what I suppose you could call a “quickie”. The violence is what you’ll remember, though, and it’s pretty ruthless. Keep the kiddies away.

Bottom Line

As far as spectacle, the shoot-em-up, blow-em-up, humans-versus-aliens-war odyssey Starship Troopers delivers what it should. Some of the battle scenes are actually pretty intense. But the movie is tame, by-the-numbers stuff overall, with cliché characters, some really poor acting, special effects that haven’t aged particularly well, and a check-the-boxes screenplay of which you’ve seen every major beat done better before (or since). There are plenty of other, smarter, more invigorating flicks you could watch that cover the same beats.

Starship Troopers (1997)

Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Screenplay by Edward Neumeier

Based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein

Rated R

Length: 129 minutes