STARSHIP TROOPERS
WenQing
Written by : Ed Numiere
Directed by : Paul Verhoeven
Cast : Michael Ironside, some beautiful unknowns... and a body count that goes into gazillions
Length : 110 min approx
Produced by : Tristar Pictures
Cinemas : reviewed in California
Rating -Overall : **
Plot and Believability : 1/2*
Effects and Graphics : ***
Action : ***
Gore and Gruesome details : *****
Mindlessness : *****
INTELLIGENCE CURVE PLUNGING
Somewhere, somehow, someone tells you to stop thinking before you enter the theatre to watch STARSHIP TROOPERS. It's the first sign that the Intelligence Curve for the whole audience is taking a horrific downturn. What must we expect from Paul Verhoeven? He gave us the stylishly violent ROBOCOP, which as a boy I was pretty shocked by. Then he gave us TOTALL RECALL, which I recall as a wild ride in a pseudo-intellectual Arnold vehicle, with slightly less stylish violence. Then we got twin sisters BASIC INSTINCT and SHOWGIRLS with thickening sleaze, mindlessness to set records and not surprisingly, the Intelligence Curve plunged to a new all-time low.
The plot goes this far into being complicated: one galaxy, too little space for human race and oversized bug race, they slug it out with lots of blood, body parts liberally strewn around (killed litter as they say), explosions, spaceships; not forgetting very ugly bugs which are dead vicious, and a set of beautiful people with unnecessary names trying to blow the bugs away. We get the normal Verhoeven wit (if you can call it that); recall ROBOCOP's numerous interjections of TV News in the future, just to spice up the movie with some cynicism and sardonic humour about the shape of things to come? It served its purpose there, constructing a society perverted and twisted into a ludicrous parody of paranoia, sensationalism and imagery. In STARSHIP TROOPERS, it's not news on TV, but a website that reveals background bug info and other juicy bits about the ongoing war in outer space.
A group of young men and women who look too beautiful to be in a Verhoeven movie (dying left right and centre) want to join the army to fight the bugs. The movies gives us one indulgent hour of training up, and after limited characterisation (that's why I'm not even leaving you with their names- they're as unimportant as the names of the countless bugs getting blown to bits), it's off to space to shoot bugs.
Admittedly, the action is gratifying if you want to witness relentless mindlessness. The gunfire is tremendously effective as a furious sweep of destructive power. The bugs are literally hacked to bits by bullets, but they keep on coming, and they come in numberless hordes (no doubt like the number of people coming to watch this movie).
The graphics and computer animation are actually quite impressive. The spaceships are pretty good (though I'm a sucker for STAR WARS and I hated the slow and anaemic ID4 versus Lucas' stop-motion animation). The pace (when we hit the action scenes) is pretty good. But I can't help noticing how the gore and senseless violence just keeps increasing like a pile of shocks, ringing out a horrific body count. The violence starts at almost gratifying as a release from week-long stress, and in a heartbeat spirals into real, unadulterated mindlessness. The website in the film tells us exactly where to shoot the bugs to take them out with one shot, but everyone is just wasting their bullets cutting the bugs down to size (and the bugs keep on coming, like I said). I don't doubt that the TROOPERS is too violent to pass uncensored (with token nudity), and I am not sure it means that it's artistic enough to be rated R(A). But either way, it means at home, you'll miss (without missing enough) the razor sharp wings of flying bugs decapitating at least two troopers, lots of people losing arms and legs to the warrior bugs on the ground who plunge huge pincers into troopers or chew them to bits, people fried alive by bugs who zap fire, and maybe even the brainsucking bug... which brings us to the bugs...
There are lots of bugs out there. There are even a group of bugs that shoot balls of blue fire out of their bowels (I think the operative term is sh*tfire).There are at least 5 types of bugs, and the plot tries to get smart when the bugs set a trap for humanity and lure the them into a bug-infested planet. The humans realise there's a leader caste in the bug race. The one they call the "brain-bug" or "smart-bug" (whichever name does it for you)... call it what you like, it's ugly, it's big and it sucks out human brains with its own straw organ!!!
And that I think is the moral of the story. It seems that at the end of the film, if you try to pinpoint what you might name the movie, you draw a blank. That's why a token name like STARSHIP TROOPERS gets dropped on us. Some years ago a horror film called THE UNNAMEABLE was released... telling us that with mindlessness, with your brain conveniently sucked right out of your head- names won't matter, plot won't matter, even how desensitised you are to the violence can't amount to much.
I don't hate STARSHIP TROOPERS, I just think it's film-making that leads nowhere but to a road of blood and spare body parts. Maybe though I'm wrong about that... maybe while I watch STARSHIP TROOPERS and get my brain sucked, the message really is : Don't think?
I say... spare yourself, unless you hate bugs that much.
The Flying Inkpot's Rating System
* Wait for the TV2 broadcast.
** A little creaky, but still better than staying at home with Gotcha!
*** Pretty good, bring a friend.
**** Amazing, potent stuff.
***** Perfection. See it twice.
Wen-Qing would like to wake up one morning knowing that he can cook for himself.
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