Review of Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004) by Adam F — 27 Feb 2013

"Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation" isn't as good as the first but it tries something different and mostly succeeds so it's entertaining. The first thing that really needs to be addressed is how the movie looks. Quality-wise, the movie doesn't hold a candle to the original because the budget is drastically reduced (from over 100 million to about 7 million) so you don't get sweeping landscapes full of bugs getting mowed down by soldiers or even large armies walking through the scenery. We do get to see the "Arachnids" but we see a lot less of them and although they don't look perfect, they're decent.

Instead of big battles, the film opts for a much smaller scale. The film plays mostly with claustrophobia (since the crew are stuck inside a single building while waiting to get picked up and rescued) and paranoia (with the humans often butting heads and the insects trying to manipulate them against one another). There are some new creature designs which are original and well done and the gore is convincing as well. We get some interesting characters and thankfully they are written well enough that they go through some convincing changes (there is a character that at the beginning seems like he will be a villain because he just acts like a jerk to everyone but changes his attitude completely once he realizes something is very wrong inside the base).

The satirical videos are still present but not quite as successful and the acting is only ok. The real problem is that even though the movie is trying something different from the original (at least it's not just a low budget re-tread) in the realms of science fiction, it's not really taking a lot of chances because we've seen the paranoid "the enemy could be among us" sort of story many times before. For what it is though, it's entertaining throughout and if you're a) a fan of the original and b) able to accept that this is going to be a different type of story you'll enjoy yourself without falling in love with it. (Dvd, February 24, 2013).