Starship Troopers trilogy - Review

Last night, I went over to Andy's for a movie night. The premise was simple: we'd sit around and drink beers, eat supper and watch a lot of movies either along a various theme or from a series. This is something we've talked about doing for awhile, but haven't, and last night we were just like "The time is now." After some debate, we settled on watching the Starship Troopers trilogy. Andy made a big pot of what he called "Bug chili" (it was a delicious, 3-bean, 3-meat chili), and he, Dawn, and myself sat down to be immersed in the world of the Starship Trooper movies (Craig joined us right after the first one ended).

Before I share my thoughts, let me preface the reviews by saying: I am a huge fan of the book "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein. I do not think, as a direct adaptation of the book, that the movies even hold a candle to it. The book is so far superior to the movies, that I can't even justly compare them. The book is a straight on war book, filled with the gritty realism of war and all of the moral and political quandaries it raises. The movies on the other hand are their own thing. Part satire, part action-adventure, and all done tongue in cheek. Therefore, I'm not going to hold them religiously responsible to the book and judge them on their own merits.


Starship Troopers

For a b-level science fiction movie, it's about what you'd expect. The acting is at times wooden, other times over the top, and you get a sense that the actors think it might be a joke. That said, the action is fairly decent. I would have hated paying $10 to see it in the theater, but as the kind of movie that a bunch of friends can sit around and critique on a Saturday night while imbibing alcohol (in Andy's and my case, beer. In Dawn and Craig's, wine) and chowing down, it's fairly enjoyable. It's dumb enough to leave itself open for smart-ass remarks from the audience, yet just smart enough to make it watchable. The best performance in it, by far, is Michael Ironside, as the tough-ass, cybernetic Rasczak, who seems to get that he's in a b-movie, but still maintains a level of believability throughout.

No discussion of Starship Troopers would be complete without inclusion of talk of the coed shower scene, and there was some debate over whether it was the best boob scene in the trilogy or not. It all really hinged upon whether actress Blake Lindsley's boobs were the best in the series or not, which was a fairly tough call, I felt.


Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation

This one tried being a straight on horror flick, but it really wasn't scary. It was actually pretty corny and seemed to lack the tongue-in-cheek attitude of the first movie. As such, instead of laughing with the movie, I think we found ourselves laughing at it and making fun of it. Easily the worst of the three flicks. I found the reuse of actress Brenda Strong, who played a fairly sizeable role as a ship's captain in the first movie and then a completely new character in this one, very, very distracting. The rest of the acting was subpar, with the exception of Richard Burgi as Dax, the titular "Hero of the Federation." Also, there was an angry Captain Picard wannabee that Craig and I liked.

The boobs in this movie belonged solely to Ms. Kelly Carlson. While it's probably the most screen time for boobs in all three movies (she seems to spend most of her time naked), there was debate whether her noticeably fake breasts were the worst in the series (Dawn said Dina Meyer's from the first were, Andy said Kelly Carlson's, and I find it a toss up...Craig said Carlson's were the worst he'd seen, but he didn't see the first movie with us and didn't remember Meyer's "breastises" as he put it). It was, however, easily decided that despite the amount of time, it was the worst boob sequence in all three movies.


Starship Troopers 3: Marauder

This one was a much better movie than the second one, as the tone was much closer to that of the first movie and it shared the first film's unspoken joke, whatever that may be. It matched it in style and humor and the special effects were much better as well. It felt much more like a true sequel to the original and this may have had to do with the fact that the star of the first movie, Casper Van Dien, returned to reprise his role of Johnny Rico. He was aided by the smoking hot Jolene Blalock (the Vulcan chick from Enterprise...and no, you don't get to see her boobs) and a much broader and more epic storyline than the second film. I actually found myself liking it a lot, for a b-level sci-fi flick. Plus, the robot suits from the novel finally made it into the movies. That made me giddy beyond belief as they tore up some bugs.

And in my opinion, though there is some debate, this one had the best boobs of the three. While the shower scene may have been a better sequence to show boobs, this one had a bit where the pilots of the robot suits had to strip down in order to get in their suits. The three female pilots, while not overly large chested, had very nice natural breasts that to me trumped the other boobs of the series (I think we counted eight pairs in all three movies).