(2004)

review by:

6-14-04

Written by: Edward Neumeier Directed by: Phil Tippett Starring: Richard Burgi, Bill Brown, Kelly Carlson

On a distant planet, a small squad of Mobile Infantry is surrounded, awaiting pickup in a tiny, barely functional outpost. There they find Dax, a soldier accused of murdering his superior officer. But what they don't know is that, even more insidious than the enemy outside the walls, is the enemy within one of their own. Sounds like it might be interesting, hell, even entertaining, right? Wrong. While I was watching this movie, a part of me deep inside died. Starship Troopers 2 is depressingly awful. At 92 minutes long, it holds the distinction of being the only movie I have ever been unable to sit through. The pace is so slow that the movie drags on even in fast forward. It slogs from aborted action to cheesy, wooden "acting" in such a way as to make even the most die-hard sci-fi fan want to die. These people are so boring they make Keanu Reeves look like Robin Williams. Continuity be damned! seems to be the tagline in this movie. At the end of the first movie, you learn that the MI is getting all sorts of new weapons that will turn the tide of the war. In this movie, the MI is using the same shitty assault rifles that can't seem to kill bugs worth crap. In fact, the guns seem to have been DOWNGRADED, with no recoil and really weak sound effects (think a little kid going *piew piew piew*). It looks like they're shooting toys. Nevermind the fact that at one point, a character goes from having 2 assault rifles to one HUGE FRIGGIN GUN without any sort of explanation. This is not a campy sci-fi action movie like you would believe. It's actually a shitty sci-fi zombie flick. That's right, zombies. There's about 5 minutes bug slaughter a'la Starship Troopers (the good one) in the beginning, then the zombies start doing their thing. Now, zombies are good in their own right, but not here. See, the first movie was a great popcorn flick. Granted, it was cheesy and overdone, but that was part of it's charm. It was entertaining. This movie takes nothing good from the original, and adds nothing new of it's own. It's just a big fat zero. Perhaps the producers were trying to do something new and different with the universe. Maybe they wanted a suspenseful thriller that would keep the audience on the edge of their seats. All they really achieved was a stupid, boring shit on the chest of their predecessor. Starship Troopers 2 is so god-awful I felt personally offended watching it. I paid four fucking dollars for this DVD, and I know, that for four dollars, I don't have a right to expect Shakespeare, but this movie violated me in a deeply intimate way. Nothing could save this movie. Not the nudity, not the copious amount of grey matter that gets spewed every time a zombie gets offed. It's not really horrible; it is WORSE than horrible. The only noteworthy point about this movie (other than the rampant suckage) is that if you play it in fast-forward while playing "Green Hornet," it syncs up pretty well. Go on, try it.

AKA: Starship Poopers

Rating



Comments

From: Honumon Rating: Good Wow. While I agree that this movie didn't even try to recapture the feel or style of the first film, I actually liked Starship Troopers 2. It was Pitch Black meets The Thing, but Borg Queen, GameSlave and I enjoyed it. This movie is a fun little aside, an extra chapter in the Starship Troopers world, though it feels more like a TV show episode than a movie. The overall story of the humans' war against the bugs is barely progressed. But at the very least, the new bug alien is awesome in a disturbing sort of way.