Review of Starship Troopers (1997) by Andym. — 02 Oct 2008

One thing that immediately struck me about the film was the absolute gender equality that seemed to be present in this society. Such an aspect starts out as being novel and inspiring, until you realize it's just an excuse for the filmmakers to put hot women in scenes which would otherwise be all-male.

In addition, the themes of war and violent conflict are addressed, as well as the morality of the destruction of life that may be sentient and intelligent. But these thought-provoking concepts are quickly thrown away for more entertaining things like dramatic visuals and gore.

It is an entertaining picture, I'll give it that. The "brain bug" that is apparently intelligent looks like it has a vagina on its face. Yet, there are so many ridiculous things... the prominent one being the strange ability for overgrown bugs to attack other planets, yet without any kind of tool use other than "throwing a meteor".

Additionally, I was constantly wondering why these troopers went around blasting fruitlessly at this unaffected bug-monsters with rifles, when they could just drop a huge bomb and be done with it! Oh, right, classic weapons make better cinema.

I mean, despite the faults, one should watch it for free on hulu.com, while it's up. Otherwise... you could skip it.