Starship Troopers ( * * * * )
"Kill 'em all!"
The Acting: About half of the cast hails from the Beverly Hills 90210/Melrose Place school of acting, which is pitch-perfect for this story about a fascistic, post-aryan society of the future. Dina Myer is an underestimated hottie, and Denise Richards is vacant-eyed eye-candy. Johnny Rico (Our Hero) is played with an astounding lack of emotional depth by Casper Van Dien, who is now arguably the direct-to-video king of the new millennium. Suck on that, Jeff Fahey. My favorite acting comes from a trio of grizzled luminaries--Jake Busey (who is prematurely grizzled), Clancy "I Voice Lex Luthor" Brown, and the great Michael Ironside, who is incapable of uttering a line without absolute conviction and a fair dosage of menace.
The Story: highly evolved but nontechnologically-inclined bugs attack earth, and the humans send off their only voters to die in a bloody ground war. I read the book--it was kind of lame--but it did explain better why they didn't just nuke them all from space. Something to do about being stupid idiots.
The Direction: Paul Verhoeven does it again. He claims this film was based on his experiences in the Dutch army, but did he ever get naked with Dina Myer in a co-ed shower? Verhoeven is so hardcore that every amputee in Hollywood got a job as a corpse during news footage scenes, and many got to relive having their arms/legs taken off during visual effects shots. Ha ha! I luuv it!
Overall: The movie has Doogie Howser as a Nazi S.S. officer. What's not to love? Well, try seeing it in a theater while sitting next to a complete sociopath, who chuckles evilly and/or makes erotic sighing noises whenever people's arms are melted off by alien napalm, yet who groans in impatience and curses the screen during (to him) excruciatingly boring character development scenes. Because that was my experience. I hate theaters.
Tredekka Rules:
The Acting: About half of the cast hails from the Beverly Hills 90210/Melrose Place school of acting, which is pitch-perfect for this story about a fascistic, post-aryan society of the future. Dina Myer is an underestimated hottie, and Denise Richards is vacant-eyed eye-candy. Johnny Rico (Our Hero) is played with an astounding lack of emotional depth by Casper Van Dien, who is now arguably the direct-to-video king of the new millennium. Suck on that, Jeff Fahey. My favorite acting comes from a trio of grizzled luminaries--Jake Busey (who is prematurely grizzled), Clancy "I Voice Lex Luthor" Brown, and the great Michael Ironside, who is incapable of uttering a line without absolute conviction and a fair dosage of menace.
The Story: highly evolved but nontechnologically-inclined bugs attack earth, and the humans send off their only voters to die in a bloody ground war. I read the book--it was kind of lame--but it did explain better why they didn't just nuke them all from space. Something to do about being stupid idiots.
The Direction: Paul Verhoeven does it again. He claims this film was based on his experiences in the Dutch army, but did he ever get naked with Dina Myer in a co-ed shower? Verhoeven is so hardcore that every amputee in Hollywood got a job as a corpse during news footage scenes, and many got to relive having their arms/legs taken off during visual effects shots. Ha ha! I luuv it!
Overall: The movie has Doogie Howser as a Nazi S.S. officer. What's not to love? Well, try seeing it in a theater while sitting next to a complete sociopath, who chuckles evilly and/or makes erotic sighing noises whenever people's arms are melted off by alien napalm, yet who groans in impatience and curses the screen during (to him) excruciatingly boring character development scenes. Because that was my experience. I hate theaters.
Tredekka Rules:
- Rule 3: Suck Actor Penalty--Caper Van Dien, -1 star
- Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Michael Ironside, +4 stars--Clancy Brown, +1 star
- Rule 7: Cameo By Human Intestines, +1 star--I mean, I can only assume. There were body parts lying all over the fucking place.
- Rule 13: Spawned A Shitty TV Series Penalty--Called Roughnecks, isn't it? One of those ne plus ultra shitty CG animated shows? Yeah, -1 star.
- Rule 16: The Paul Verhoeven "More Blood!" Award--the guy should get a lifetime achievement award or somethin'. There's even gooey green alien blood. But it made me sad when Dizzy died. +1 star.
- Rule 38: The "Blind Me Now" Penalty--goes to the co-ed shower scene. You takes the bad with the good. -1 star.
Tredekka Score: ( * * * * )
posted by Tredekka at 2:30 AM
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