Starship Troopers [DVD] [1998]

This is Rico's story. He joined up for the wrong reasons (but I can certainly understand how a Denise Richards could influence such a decision), soon receives a "Dear John" video letter from Carmen (although their paths will cross again), and indirectly causes the death of one of his squad members, but when the war begins he quickly becomes not only a real soldier but a real leader, as well. This is no easy task, as his climb in the ranks is made possible by the death of those he serves under. I love Denise Richards, but her role in the movie never quite seemed to fit her. All she cares about is flying, and she is quick to ingratiate herself upon those she thinks can help her make it to the fleet academy; in space, she quickly forgets all about Rico and teams up with her direct supervisor. There is very little human about her--contrast this with Dizzy, who is very down to earth and serves as the true heroine of the action. Possibly in line with the rather obvious fascist satire of the one-world earth federation, the military intelligence guys dress like the Gestapo, and believe me when I say that seeing Doogie Howser in a Gestapo-like getup is a rather surreal experience.

The effects are top of the line. The CGI animation of the giant bugs is incredible and very realistic; they rely on their pointed appendages rather than actual weapons to skewer and slash the enemy, and they really know how to tear into a human body. It takes a lot of bullets to kill them, and they die rather messily. The deaths of earth's soldiers is also ultra-realistic and realistically gory. As morbid as this sounds, I must say that nowhere else have I seen beheadings done so perfectly and believably. Most impressive of all are the visual effects of earth's spaceships; the explosions in space are of epic proportions, and we see greatly detailed features of ships splitting in two, crashing, and burning.

While this movie may not be true to the original Heinlein spirit, it nevertheless does succeed as thought-provoking moviemaking at its best. The social and political implications of the type of future society presented here are quite relevant to the world as we know it today, as are the insights into fighting a world-wide war against enemies we may not truly understand. The warfare is intense and the heroic actions of many of the movie's characters are awe-inspiring, but the movie pulls no punches in bringing home the fact that war is a terrible, ugly business and warns us that we must really know our enemies before launching a war against them. I won't go into the various subplots, but they hold the movie together and really force its points home on the viewer. At 130 minutes long, you really get your money's worth--this is science fiction movie-making at its best.