STARSHIP TROOPERS

Much More than a Bug Hunt

A tale of patriotic fury set amid militaristic blood and thunder, this is the type of movie nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards fifty years ago, and honored by Adolf Hitler's Third Reich ten years before that. Back then, idealistic soldiers went off to war, suffered through its horrors, and - if they survived to the final reel - came out of their trials with a deeper wisdom and unbreakable bonds with their particular god and country.

Today, war movies are much different. They still tell of the common man's heroic deeds battling amid the horrors of war, but they often end up telling the tale of veterans discovering how their government has used them as pawns in an international struggle for power.

In their previous collaboration RoboCop, writer Ed Neumeier and director Paul Verhoeven walked the thin edge between wicked satire and straight action drama in an engaging science fiction setting. This adventure, adapted from the controversial Robert Heinlein novel, maintains the same delicate balance. With a cast full of TV soap actors, the early part of the picture might pass for The Jetsons 90120. Square-jawed Casper Van Dien stars as Johnny Rico, high school football team captain in a shining happy future Earth. His girlfriend Carmen (big-eyed Denise Richards) has her heart set on a career as a Space Marines starship pilot, so Johnny - over his rich parents' objections - joins the infantry to be close to her. Complicating matters, Johnny's rival Zander Barcalow (pretty boy Patrick Muldoon) has signed up for pilot training with Carmen, while Johnny's own stalker Dizzy Flores (sensuous Dina Meyer) shows up in boot camp to stay close to him (and promptly shoots a guy's head off in a training accident, getting Johnny in trouble). When the Bugs from across the Galaxy start tossing bombs at Earth, everybody runs off to War screaming for alien blood.

The rest of the picture is everything the Fox TV series Space: Above and Beyond should have been and lots lots more. In a word: it Rocks! Our gallant troopers pit their rocket ships and hi-tek weaponry against an imaginative variety of insectoid foes. And we don't just see a few f/x sequences of combat - entire armies clash and die horribly.

Beneath all the gritty-but-dazzling action runs a sharp edge of subtle snarking. As in RoboCop, the action is intercut with straight-faced media presentations of events. Barely mentioned are suspicions that the entire war was caused by mankind's encroachment on the Bugs' territory, and that the 'Pearl Harbor' style first shot could have been easily prevented. Underscoring this atmosphere is the design of the film, which shows a society that is cheerfully fascistic in nature. In order to earn full citizenship (with voting privileges, etc.), Earth's inhabitants have to serve the government in some fashion, usually through military service. Gattica's future hand-wringing over genetic engineering is all long forgotten here. Every human we see is a genetic super-being - stronger, faster and smarter than anyone alive today. Through a combination of advanced medical procedures and superhuman stamina, the stormtroopers can survive any but the most advanced injury. Talented mentalists like Johnny's buddy Carl (Neil Patrick Harris) have telepathic abilities. And although the leads all bear Spanish names and hail from Buenos Aires, they're all apparently whitebread.

Whether viewed as a wry social commentary on creeping fascist tendencies in today's society or as a roaring science fiction action epic, Starship Troopers is a sure audience pleaser.

Future metropolis; ESP; kung fu; spaceships; armies of monsters from another planet; co-ed showers; rampant blood, gore, and squish; p-stars Michael Ironside and creepy Jake Busey; body count in the millions; heads roll; lots and lots of explosions.

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The Movie Madness section and its contents are ©2007 Brian Thomas