STARSHIP
TROOPERS 2: HERO OF THE FEDERATION - 2004
Tri-Star
Pictures
Rating: USA - R |
|
When a movie
goes straight to video it's usually a pretty safe assumption that it sucks.
But if said movie is a sequel to a movie that really sucked, is it possible
that merely sucking is an improvement? Or is that too confusing? Let me
start over.
STARSHIP TROOPERS 2 was written by Edward Neumeier (ROBOCOP, STARSHIP TROOPERS) and
directed by Special effects Ace Phil Tippet (his
first time directing). Mr. Tippet's career has been mostly on the
special effects side, including the creature effects in STARSHIP TROOPERS
(the only half-way decent part of an otherwise awful
movie). Both movies are based on the excellent novel "Starship
Troopers" by Robert Heinlein.
The story opens with an upbeat propaganda video about how well the Bug War is going
(just like in the first movie) which fades to the brutal reality of a squad in desperate combat. The bugs (giant insect warriors) are everywhere and the soldiers are cut off, but
they manage to make it to a nearby abandoned outpost. In nominal command
is Lt. Dill (Lawrence Monoson: FRIDAY THE 13th: THE FINAL CHAPTER), who also happens to be a PsyCore psychic. But
the group is really held together by cigar-chomping Sgt. Rake (Brenda
Strong: STARSHIP TROOPERS, RED
DRAGON). Brenda Strong played a different character in the
first movie - a starship captain killed in battle.
Inside the abandoned outpost, locked in an incinerator with the word "murderer"
scrawled on it, the troopers find war hero and rebel Captain Dax (Richard
Burgi: DECOYS). A
quick check of the base log shows Dax murdered his commanding officer
so Lt. Dill orders that Dax be left in his makeshift prison. But not long
after a bug attack leads Private Sahara (Colleen Porch) to release Dax because they need the help. Sahara feels
she can trust Dax because she also has psychic abilities, though they
weren't considered reliable enough for her to "wear the black"
like Lt. Dill.
Not long after another group of survivors makes it to the outpost. This group includes
General Shepard (Ed Lauter: KING KONG [1976], PYTHON),
the freaky but competent tech Sgt. Peck (J.P. Manoux: THE DAY AFTER
TOMORROW), and the very sexy Private Charlie Soda (Kelly
Carlson). Some of these new arrivals seem a bit… strange. I
won't say anymore about that but I will say it involves standard sci-fi
plot #3.
In spite of being a much lower budget movie than its predecessor the effects here
are pretty good. That's to be expected, I assume, when the director is
also a special effects artist. The acting ranges from the terrible to
the not too bad so it's about average for a straight-to-video monster
flick. The thing that makes this movie suck (which
it does) is the cliché-ridden script. The dialogue is predictable
and the plot is formula. And speaking as a Heinlein fan I feel certain
he would have hated this movie almost as much as he would have hated the
first one because once again the political ideas expressed in his book
are portrayed as fascism. In fact there's a very anti-military bias here,
as though the humans are fighting an unjust war against the bugs! Neumeier
seriously needs to re-read Heinlein's novel.
And speaking of being serious, it's time for a
!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
This science moment involves a personal experience connected to this movie.
I was at the 2002 San Diego Comic Con and, while wandering around one
day, I came across a panel discussion about STARSHIP TROOPERS 2. Actress
Brenda Strong, director Phil Tippett and writer Ed Neumeier (and
one of the producers, I think) were all there promoting the movie
and taking questions from the audience. So I took the opportunity to ask
(as diplomatically as I could manage) why
the first movie did such a terrible job getting the science right, especially
considering that it was based on a Robert Heinlein novel and Heinlein
was one of the first "hard core" science fiction writers who
always made a serious effort to get the scientific details correct.
The reaction? Confusion. They looked at each other and back at me and clearly didn't understand
what I was talking about. They thought the science was fine. Which explains
a lot about these movies and about Hollywood in general.
The science in STARSHIP TROOPERS 2 isn't terrible only because it doesn't have the chance, given the limited
scope of the story. A few things bothered me, like the primitive (given
that this is supposed to be 100 years or more in the future) weapons
and the fact that Lt. Dill wore glasses. That far in the future the only
place you'd find glasses is in a museum. But those are minor points and
don't affect my rating anywhere near as much as the formula screenplay.
I give STARSHIP TROOPERS
2 a matching two on the shriek girl scale.
This review
copyright 2004 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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