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SYNOPSIS:
Col. Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) is back to lead his team
on a secret mission to rescue a small crew of troopers stranded
on the remote planet of OM-1. Battling bugs, both new and
old, the new "Marauder" advanced weapons technology
may be their only hope against a treasonous element operating
within the Federation itself. As Captain Lola Beck (Jolene
Blalock) and the rest of the starship crew fight to survive
in the harsh conditions, it begins to dawn on them that something
on OM-1 is very, very wrong. This time the bugs have a secret
weapon that could destroy humanity. Join the Mobile Infantry
in this intergalactic action-packed adventure.
MOVIE
REVIEW
Edward Neumeier shouldn't be a stranger to most science
fiction genre movie fans.
Having co-written RoboCop and hence working with director
Paul Verhoeven, they
collaborated again in making the original Starship Troopers
movie some 11 years ago.
While Verhoeven departed from directing the Robo and Starship
franchises beyond
their first movies, Neumeier continued providing the stories
for the sequels, and
contributed to some stories in the RoboCop television shows.
He finally got his
hands dirty at directing this installment of Starship Troopers,
titled Marauder.
While
Troopers creator Robert A, Heinlein would likely have flipped
at the creative
liberties taken with the original big-budgeted film (which
I enjoyed, but I know
many others who loathed it), this movie finally equipped the
Mobile Infantry
troopers with some heavy armour and advanced weaponry, which
was lacking in the
first movie and had purists waving their fists at it, but
alas the Marauder was
nothing more than over-glorified armour weaponry that was
given all but 5 minutes of
screen time.
However,
if you'd expect Marauder to come full of advanced effects,
that you'll be
disappointed. The entire movie suffered from a relatively
low production budget, and
looks very much firmly in place in the B-grade collection
with scenes obviously set
in small sound stages, and effects so rough that the original
movie looked like
Rembrandt in motion. Aptly put, it doesn't go beyond an average
television episode,
so if you're OK with that, then you'll be at home with this
particular installment.
Director-writer
Neumeier brought back the character of Johnny Rico after his
absence in the second movie. When we last saw Rico, we actually
followed his career to earn his citizenry, from Cadet to Lieutenant,
and now he's already made Colonel, protector of planet P.
Casper Van Dien makes his welcomed return to the role, and
joins Jolene Blalock's Lola Beck, who's a suspected old flame
of Rico's, which brings upon some jealousy to good friend
and superior General Dix Hauser (Boris Kodjoe). Joining them
is the all-singing super motivator, a psychic Sky Marshall
Anoke (Stephen Hogan), who's more than meets the eye and given
a pop-star like treatment wherever he goes. The story only
picks up when he and Lola crash lands on a bug-infested planet
OM1, while Hauser and Rico plot a rescue mission to pluck
their friends off that planet.
While
the plot development is rather blah, Neumeier's forte seemed
to be putting in
those wonderful cheesy ads in the movies, as he did in RoboCop,
and for the fascist
like recruitment program and news that become staple in the
Starship Troopers
franchise, screaming media manipulation. Other than that,
there wasn't a lot of
mind-numbing all out action where bugs and humans get graphically
eliminated, as per
what was memorable from the first movie, but what really seemed
un-Trooper-like in
cinematic terms, were plenty of dialogue about religion. In
fact, there was so much
explicit religious propaganda, what with the repeated recitation
of the Lord's
Prayer to summon help from a higher being, turning many into
converts. and of
course, an obvious homage to Creation.
Will
there be another Starship Trooper movie after this one? Well,
given the new
weaponry which would earn the seal of approval from the Emperor
as a rival to his
Death Star, I'd say it might be a waste to just leave it at
that. Hopefully of
course any follow up will start with ramping up the production
values, and of
course, having a more mature treatment of a story from Edward
Neumeier.
Anyway,
would you like to know more about the extras on the DVD?
SPECIAL FEATURES :
The Filmmaker Commentary has writer-director Edward
Neumeier, Visual Effects Supervisor Robert Skotak and Producer
David Lancaster banter about how the film project started,
and along the way shared various insights to how certain shots
were achieved, and where the CG-ed contributions are. You'll
get to hear all the various production woes, as well as their
praise of South Africa being the perfect location for many
of its outdoor shots. However, you can't help but to feel
sorry for them as they recount how the studio capped plenty
of their initial zeal, and had them focused on various cost
cutting measures to try and realize this project - but of
course when they signed off the commentary, they had nothing
but politically correct statements about the treatment they
got..
And if one commentary track is not enough, there's another
Director & Cast
Commentary track with Edward Neumeier, together with
leads Casper Van Dien and
Jolene Blalock, who share plenty of inside jokes regarding
certain scenes, and were
of all praise toward the designs of sets, computer generated
graphics and props.
Naturally this track was less technical than the previous,
and a lot more fun to sit
through.
Most of the extras were presented in anamorphic
widescreen with Spanish, Portuguese and Korean subtitles:
On
the Bounce: The Making of Marauder is your standard
making-of documentary (24:12) where the international cast
and crew share their thoughts on production, and you get to
see some behind the scenes clips and learn in summary, some
of the production trivia.
The creature creation and effects staff get a focused documentary
with Evolution:
The Bugs of Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (11:31),
where we learn how the CG and full sized puppets were created
to be the villains of the movie. Some new bugs were conceptualized
for the movie besides the ubiquitous and staple Warrior bug,
like the Bombardier bug, Scorpion bug, an improved Brain bug
and the mother of all bugs in the movie, the Behemecoatyl.
The Enlist! Marauder's Mobile Infantry featurette
(13:55) contains some very
brief information about the stunts featured in the movie,
and has more
mini-interviews with all the cast who play troopers in the
movie, as we are told
they had to go through boot camp to make them believable military
men and women.
There's
also the Music Video "It's A Good Day To Die"
(Extended Version runnin 2:39) that combines Stephen
Hogan's performance as seen in the movie, as well as clips
from the film. Thought it might be better if it came with
karaoke styled subtitled lyrics for you to sing along in a
cheesy heart-thumping song about sacrifice, courage, duty
and honour.
And
to wrap the extras up, Trailers are bundled
in for Resident Evil: Degeneration, Hancock, Zombie Strippers,
The Take, Impact Point and Blu-ray Disc is High Definition
tooting its horn.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
As
always, I have no qualms about the pristine visual transfer
in anamorphic
widescreen format, and only the limited action sequences push
the limits of the 5.1
dolby digital available across all audio language options..
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Stefan Shih
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