Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars

I generally watch the Starship Troopers CG movies looking for ridiculously over-the-top action shlock I can put on with friends and laugh at while being entertained. Traitor of Mars does the trick on this front, but it actually has a pretty good story this time with a cast of lovable shlubs. Whoever came up with the concept of a makeup-caked bimbo Space Marine is exactly the kind of person who should be leading the charge on these Starship Trooler CG flicks.

These sequels are, as you might expect, nowhere remotely close to the verhoeven classic in terms of tone or message, but they surprisingly do a pretty great job of keeping up that same dumb fun 90's shlock feel that the surface level of first flick had: troopers are sent into the meat grinder time and again by incompetent superiors who are wholly detached from the reality of war. The difference is that, in these CG flicks, Rico will get launched 15 feet into the air, do a flip and jump-kick a giant bug to kill it, and it'll totally work. Everyone has anime plot armor and every dumb tactical decision can be fought through by shooting enough bullets at it.

In short, it's close enough to the surface level of the original to keep true, while also being wholly enjoyable shlock to watch with friends. Thought they did a good job with this one.

Glad they continued the CGI movies as they seem to be putting some good ST material out at long last. Don't listen to the pretensious reviewers picking apart every little thing that didn't give them the same experience they got from Verhoeven's adaptation or Heinlein's book (which was mostly about politics and not much about the bug war). It's a worthy addition to the ST storyline. Yes, it's got some cheesy voice acting. Really not that bad though. Casper Van Dien was nominated for a voice acting award for gods sake. LoL. Give it a chance you apes! :)

Both "Starship Troopers" the book, and the 1997 movie, are classics. The present movie in no way measures up to them. But it's a decent sequel. It has great action, good graphics, and despite what many others reviewers have said, the plot is not bad. It highlights important themes in the Starship Troopers universe, and sets up possibilities for future sequels.

It is great seeing Casper Van Dien back in action as the heroic Johnny Rico, even as an animated avatar. It's also nice to have Dina Meyer return as "Dizzy" Flores, in a significant role.

As strange as it may seem to say this, I actually prefer the two most recent animated offerings in the Starship Troopers franchise to live-action sequels 2 and 3. With animation, extraordinary sci-fi action scenes don't seem as unrealistic as they can in some live-action films. It's also easier to accept them as fun. Since it is unlikely that any further sequels will be able to come close to the success of the original film, animation may be the way forward for the franchise.

Enjoying the Starship Troopers franchise is a hard thing to do. From the excellent Paul Verhoeven live-action movie to the abysmal 2 sequels, the interesting Roughnecks animated series and the decent first CGI movie we now have again arrived at a low point. While the first CGI movie managed to combine elements of the book and the first movie into a gorgeous present to the fans, Traitor of Mars is a messy, hastily written mess, with dialogue so cheesy it makes you cringe. The sad part is that they clearly improved in the animation department, especially when it comes to the characters movements, which looked quite stiff in it's predecessor. You can also see that they spend a lot of time in designing believable equipment and sprinkling several nods to the franchise into the world. But all of this effort is negated by a lazy script, the unnecessary addition of one of the most boring villains in movie history, and voice acting so horrible it reminds you of children's cartoons from the 80s.

Serious funding was spent on the CG and the storytelling, only to be ruined by third-rate dialog. Would have been an asset to Starship Trooper if they had invested in better scriptwriters. I realize the cost restraints and the enormous effort in the creative department and voice actors. But to neglect in spending in a decent dialog writer is just a shame....