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Starship Troopers, no matter the terrible acting style, is still a great watch almost ten years on. Obviously Verhoeven has a bee in his bonnet about getting certain themes across to the viewer. In Robocop the reduction of personal freedoms by overblown corporations, here the reduction of personal freedoms by the state. At times it's not as in your face or as satirically funny as Robocop but it still gets the point across. Underlying we have the menace of a society mobilising only for expansion and war. To serve the military in such a way has no other purpose and Verhoeven is not so subtlety trying to tell us to watch out for this. One day it's bugs, who knows who or what it might be next. Even without the supplied directors commentary backing all of this up it can be easily seen from moments in the film where phrases like "To ensure that Human civilisation, not insect dominates this galaxy now and forever" or the fact that most of the military wear costumes WWII Nazis tailors would have been proud of! Interspersed with propaganda adverts Verhoeven has suitably shown us a society on the march towards fascism, control and destruction.
Transfer wise you're not going to get much better than this. Certainly it's by no means perfect but those minor glitches are nothing if not fleeting. Sound wise, perhaps a little more exposure to the rears but apart from that I cannot fault it.
I was a little let down by the extras. Yes there's one or two but nothing there of substance, no real meat telling you something you didn't already know about this film or the movie industry as a whole. It's a travesty that the directors commentary wasn't included.
Watchers of Starship Troopers tend to fall into the love it or hate it camps. Most in the latter can't get by the Pinocchio acting technique. They are right of course, some of the acting at times doesn't get any worse than this. Does this enhance what is ultimately a B-Movie though, or just me sticking up for it? For my own part the themes, story, visual spectacle and utter mayhem in this film appeals. A lover of 50s Sci-Fi B-Movies and this has to be the best one of its genre from the 90's. It's always worth another watch and definitely worth an upgrade to Blu-Ray purely for those glorious visuals.
Read the full review...
Transfer wise you're not going to get much better than this. Certainly it's by no means perfect but those minor glitches are nothing if not fleeting. Sound wise, perhaps a little more exposure to the rears but apart from that I cannot fault it.
I was a little let down by the extras. Yes there's one or two but nothing there of substance, no real meat telling you something you didn't already know about this film or the movie industry as a whole. It's a travesty that the directors commentary wasn't included.
Watchers of Starship Troopers tend to fall into the love it or hate it camps. Most in the latter can't get by the Pinocchio acting technique. They are right of course, some of the acting at times doesn't get any worse than this. Does this enhance what is ultimately a B-Movie though, or just me sticking up for it? For my own part the themes, story, visual spectacle and utter mayhem in this film appeals. A lover of 50s Sci-Fi B-Movies and this has to be the best one of its genre from the 90's. It's always worth another watch and definitely worth an upgrade to Blu-Ray purely for those glorious visuals.
Read the full review...