Review of Starship Troopers (1997) by Ben L — 22 Sep 2017

Really, really funny.

Starship Troopers works both as a great sci-fi actioner, and also as a fantastic satire of many things, among them being fascism, American foreign policy, militarism, and above all, it's very own source material. The great thing about this movie is that while you may not like it the first time you watch it, the more you think about it, the more the reason for it's puzzlingly bad acting and excessive gore become clear. It is making fun of it's own genre. Think Ender's Game, but instead of Ender going off to repent for what he has done, extreme patriotism leads the soldiers to reward themselves for their hostile efforts with more war.

This film exhibits lines like a news reporter saying "some say the bugs were provoked by the intrusion of humans into their natural habitat. That a live and let live policy more preferable than the war with the bugs." To which our hero, who has pretty much given in to the war and propaganda says "I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say kill 'em all!" Showing how humans would react to something like that as a result of their actions.

The imagery used in the propaganda that the audiences are shown is subtle, but it really drives the point home if you get the joke. The over the top gore and violence isn't merely some dudes fascination, but is instead used to show the horrors that may come from our aggressive actions, and the fact that a peaceful species retaliating causes us to try to destroy them shows the state of our governments, and is still a topical plot point to this day.

While no one knows the intentions of the original novel's fascist imagery to the letter, many speculate that it is promoting it instead of satirizing it, and this movie takes aim at it's own source material, a gutsy move that not many studios would want to attempt, in fear that they would alienate the core audience. But, this movie does so with gusto, and in doing so, comes out on top as a winner. I would highly recommend it, because even if you don't quite get the massive joke that is this movie's premise, the special effects aren't even half bad by today's standards, utilizing creature effects when possible to make some truly terrifying, brain sucking, fire spitting foes for our not-so-heroic heroes, and the fight scenes are actually pretty cool to look at, even if they don't have many of the elements from the novel such as the power suits.