Old Stuff
Starship Troopers (1997)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Nazi-sympathizer Paul Verhoeven has crafted a movie that would give Adolph Hitler a woody. What up, Paul? Were your parents the ones that turned in Anne Frank, or what? Sig Heil!... Just kidding. But holy shit, what was he thinking?
The "heroes" of this space idiocy are precisely the posturing jock assholes that I despised in high school. Even those date-rape jackoffs had more soul than Verhoeven's Aryan androids. The movie takes place in the future where, apparently, everyone is a fuck-head. The earth has one "federal" government with a one party system. In order to vote you must become a citizen. The only way to do that is to be brainwashed in an exclusive government school and then serve time in the military (sounds like Commies or Nazis to me). The earth is being bombarded by asteroids that are being shot from a distant galaxy populated by alien bugs. The federal government is preparing a counter attack and wants every dick-head to join up.
The flick starts in Buenos Aires which is infested by a bunch of WASP's. Evidently, these vile yuppies wiped out anyone of a darker hue just before the opening credits. Casper Van Dien plays "Johnny", a dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammers, American football playin', in your face, high school asshole who has a hard-on for "Carmen." Carmen is played by an escapee from a Clearasil commercial, Denise Richards. When she signs up for the big bug hunt, he follows but they are immediately separated. It turns out that Denise is more of an uber-wench than Casper is an uber-mensch and she is sent off to become an elite space-jock while he's relegated to an ordinary grunt boot camp
What follows is the story of how Johnny becomes a man through whippings, boinkings and fascist-style posturings. The battle scenes against the insects on their alien world would be fantastic if it weren't for two small problems: 1) I could give a hot ham sandwich about these idiots as they fight for their lives -- I was hoping the bugs would win! 2) The brain-dead strategy the Nazis... I mean, the "Federal Government" employs to defeat the sub-humans... I mean, the "bugs" is so astoundingly stupid. The best analogy I can think of is that a farmer discovers that his fields are being invaded by killer bees, so he furiously exercises and gets into his best physical shape. He then grabs a fly swatter, runs out into the fields and starts whacking every little bugger in sight. What are we, the audience, supposed to think as thousands of bees descend on him? Ew, he got one!?! Why is the "Federal Government" sending troops with pee-shooters to a distant world occupied by millions of rampaging, truck-sized bugs? Why not just send some giant Raid ® Roach Bombs?
"Doogie Howser's" Neil Patrick Harris has a small role as one of the Buenos Aires brats who joins up for the big bug hunt. He's got "ESP" so he's put into the Gestapo or something. The next time we see him, he's a leather trench coat wearin', Erwin Rommel look-a-like! When Johnny and the storm troopers... I mean, starship troopers pull a "brain bug" (a metaphor for the intellectual, commie-Jew, perhaps?) out into the light of day, Doogie carries on the grand tradition of movie/TV psychics everywhere by explaining the blindingly obvious. As the helpless slug quakes and trembles in fear, he quickly employs his extrasensory powers and intones, "It's scared!" Thanks, Sherlock. This movie is stuffed to the spike of it's funny Kaiser helmet with chunk blow-inducing action but is of interest to gore-hounds, Village Voice critics, and neo-Nazis only. -- Rating: $1.25
Tom Graney -- Hollywood Outsider copyright 1997