Taking place several hundred years in the future, on a unified Earth where
Democracy has been considered a failure, and the right to vote--in fact,
becoming a full-fledged citizen--is only granted to a person when they serve in
the military, Starship Troopers follows a group of Argentinean high school grads
as they all join up to fight the good fight in the Federal Service. The main
characters are Johnny Rico (Casper Van Diem); Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards),
the love of his life who barely knows he’s alive; geek Carl Jenkins (Neil
Patrick Harris) and Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), who adores Johnny, yet is barely
noticed by him.
Carmen is thinking about commanding her own starship one day, and so she joins
up in the fleet. Carl’s high intelligence--and ESP powers--get him assigned to
military intelligence. Yet Johnny’s bad math skills land him in the Mobile
Infantry with Dizzy, where he manages to earn respect and works his way up to
being squad leader of his band of grunts. Yet it isn’t long before the other
shoe drops--or should I say, the asteroid. The Arachnids, an evil insect race
hell-bent on death and destruction, have hurled an asteroid at Earth, striking
Buenos Aires and wiping that city off the map. The high council have declared
interstellar war on the bugs, and Johnny, Carmen, Carl and Dizzy have now all willingly
answered the call to arms.
Based on the classic SF novel by Science Fiction grandmaster Robert A. Heinlein,
Starship Troopers was director Paul Verhoeven’s first film after his disastrous
Showgirls, and his second collaboration with RoboCop screenwriter Edward
Neumeier, who interjects some of the same sly commentary here that served
RoboCop so well. Those viewers who trashed Starship Troopers as being nothing
more than a film that glorifies war have missed the subtler points that Neumeier
and Verhoeven make--such as the web site-like news service that constantly spews
forth propaganda (Would you like to know more?) about how everyone must do their part; an example of this is
the sight of a bunch of children stepping on earth bugs--harmless creatures
which have absolutely nothing to do with the war. And the sight of a ghoulishly
pale Neil Patrick Harris giving a pep talk about how we must win this war while
clad in a black, Gestapo-like uniform is both extremely funny and scary at the
same time.
To be sure, Starship Troopers has it’s really goofy movie moments, such as the
coed shower scene, and the whole, overwrought love affair between Carmen, Johnny
and Dizzy (which is handled so clumsily, it makes the regular daytime soaps look
like Jane Austen in comparison), as well as actor Michael Ironside’s now-classic
rendition of the line "They sucked his brains out." Yet Starship Trooper’s
production design and special effects are so well done, and fun to watch, because
they’ve effectively created one of the most fully-realized science fiction
universes outside of Star Trek, Star Wars and the Stargate series. The special
edition DVD is loaded with fun stuff, such as commentaries by the cast and crew,
along with a host of "making of" documentaries and features on a second disc. So
if you’re looking for a grand interstellar space adventure (and don’t mind a lot
of blood and gore), then sign up for a tour of duty with Starship Troopers.
--SF
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