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Marauding mess! , 23 July 2009
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Starship Troopers 3 - Marauders
on DVD
(2008)
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Jolene Blalock, Boris Kodjoe
Director: Edward Neumeier
Certificate: 
The original Starship Troopers was both a gung-ho whizz bang sci-fi actioner where pretty teens fought off rampaging hordes of alien insect life and also a timely satire about war proganda and the way a war is sold.
Starship Troopers 3 Marauder is a direct to DVD sequel that attempts to recapture the original film's 90210 meets Aliens tongue-in-cheek style with not-so subtle political commentary. Casper Van Dien reprises his role of Johnny Rico the hero soldier who, this time is out to rescue missing Sky Marshal Anone played by Stephen Horgan, head of the human forces, who has gone missing on a bug planet (don't they always!).
This time around, the issue of religion is clumsily thrown into the mix as the missing Sky Marshal's spiritual beliefs become and issue as they do not sit with he totalitarian all-powerful state that has made the suppression of religion as much a priority as squashing oppostion to the war with the bugs. The Sky Marshal's faith becomes the focus of the story when it is revealed the God he is following is actually a really big bug.
Director Ed Neumeier has helmed a film that is quite messy and not sure what it wants to be and neither do the characters, even the drone-like insects will veer from being mindless killing machines one second, to tactical geniuses who pick and choose their victims the next. Star Trek Entertprise actress Jolene Blalock plays Captain Lola Beck, whose roles switches schziophrenically between caring pilot to hardened war-weary soldier to, (inevitably) pouting damsel in distress.
Perhaps most disappointingly of all, the exciting and inventive action sequences of the original have been replaced with badly executed battle scenes which are so badly lit its hard to make out what is going on. Perhaps this is a ruse to cover up how the very poor make-up effects of the alien insects are. For a so called action film to serve up as its main course very poor fights is the worst crime. Social commentary is all well and good but fundamentally you do not watch Starship Troopers for a debate about religion versus the state you watch it to see big insects being shot by really big guns.
 
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