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115 out of 153 people found the following review useful: As bad as a sequel can get!, 4 June 2004 Author: jellyneckr
In the past few months, a bunch of direct-to-video sequels to highly successful movies have been released. There has been WILD THINGS 2, there has been CRUEL INTENTIONS 3, there has been THE SKULLS 3, and now there is STARSHIP TROOPERS 2: HERO OF THE FEDERATION, a disappointing follow-up to the science fiction classic STARSHIP TROOPERS. There was really no reason for this movie to exist. A sequel was not necessary, but for some odd reason, this sequel was made. The original STARSHIP TROOPERS was a big-budget extravaganza with a budget around $105 million. STARSHIP TROOPERS 2: HERO OF THE FEDERATION has a budget of a around $6 million so naturally the special effects in this one look like crap. The special effects are not the only poor-looking aspect of the movie. In fact, the whole movie just looks terrible. The cinematography is awful as is the acting, writing, and directing. This movie is as bad as a sequel can get. No stars.
91 out of 115 people found the following review useful: Not even particularly good for a B-movie, 20 August 2004 Author: Grann-Bach (Grann-Bach@jubii.dk) from Denmark
From the very first frame of this film to the very last, it's completely obvious that it's a B-movie. A modern, low-budget, direct-to-video no less, action-B-movie. As a follow-up to the first, it's very bad. It turns the plot and theme of the first completely around. The plot is lame, and very unoriginal. The acting is horrible; there were times when it felt like a comedy, or a parody of the first. The characters are badly written cliches, derived from war movies and other B-movies. The cinematography is amateurish and lesser than that of the typical level of early film-student test film(believe me, it really is that bad). The director(or possibly the director of photography, or maybe the cameramen) seems to have a fetish for pointless and very quick zooming shots, and there seems to be quite a lot of camera angles that are zoomed much too far in. I also hated a few of the pan shots, but there were not as many as the zoom shots, and they were somewhat far between. The special effects are quite awful, though there were one or two effects that looked decent. The heroism and stereotyping of the main character/hero is ludicrous. I couldn't stop laughing at the scenes where he tries to look heroic. The whole film is quite laughable. The attempts at humor are cringe-worthy, and almost every scene that is supposed to inspire fear, tension or horror, inspired laughter and mockery instead. The dialog is ridiculous, and very badly written. The action is tame and never really intense. The horror elements are derivative of several much better movies, and generally don't work like they're supposed to, for various reasons(bad special effects,bad acting, bad camera angle). I know that this was direct-to-video, low-budget, and was possibly even intended as a B-movie, but come on, you can do better than this. Almost anyone could. I would guess that, given the same budget(about six million dollars, I think), I could have supplied a better, more interesting 90 minute flick. None of the limitations can be used to excuse how bad the film is. Direct-to-video? Please. So was Children of the Corn IV and American Psycho 2, and at least they were somewhat entertaining and much more professionally made. Low budget? Two words: El Mariachi. B-movie? Honestly... there are plenty of much more entertaining B-movies out there. Take Barb Wire, for example. All in all, a pretty bad film, but fans of B-movies might enjoy it. I recommend this only to fans of B-movies, and people who wished the first had been more like a B-movie. Fans of the first should stay away. I don't regret watching this, though. It was good for a laugh, and knowing that it's so bad is better than wondering about it. If you somehow, as a fan of the first, see this movie, try to think of it as comic relief, a spoof of the first. It'll soften the blow. 1/10
102 out of 140 people found the following review useful: They somehow managed to screw up everything., 12 June 2004 Author: mendaliv
This movie is unwatchable. I found every single feature of it to be revolting.For one, we have the effects. Every single bullet shot is a lame CGed blue pulse.Two, they obviously didn't have anybody research military tactics. When the bugs are about to attack, instead of holding out inside the base and killing the bugs in hemmed-in territory (a la Sun Tsu), they move outside the base and massively expand their front. When the troops send a runner to inform someone that the bugs were coming, they send a heavy weapons operator, complete with his heavy gun.Moreover, the behavior of the General is completely stupid. He acts like a Corporal at BEST.The music is VERY poorly chosen, and never fits the scenes. Foreshadowing is very overt. Even the directing is shoddy... when the psychic fellow hallucinates, they use very ambiguous effects to signify it.Please, avoid this movie at ALL COSTS. I swear, it couldn't have cost more than $50,000 to make...
76 out of 110 people found the following review useful: Insulting!, 24 March 2005 Author: redtail_avenger from United Kingdom
This weak excuse for a film insulted the good name of Starship Troopers. Not only does it have very little to do with the book, but it's plot is stupid as well. Good performances by the actor/actresses can't get past the pointlessly excessive violence and several frankly disturbing video sequences. This film has none of the style or comic timing of the first, just an unnecessary amount of murder and worrying sections. I'm a teenager and I thought this was over-violent for crying out loud!! What happened to the direction and writing teams of the original anyway? Why is the audience forced to endure this piece of trash. Many people, like myself, probably only saw this film because of the brilliance and originality of the first, but are instead subjected to this low rubbish. Yet another unneeded sequel,thank you so much Hollwood!!
55 out of 84 people found the following review useful: Hmmmm didn't she die in the first one?, 19 December 2004 Author: russellcooley from Ireland
Firstly I have to make something clear I loved the first movie,it was a sci-fi masterpiece.This sequel does something no other sequel has ever attempted to do......and thats were it all went wrong,the plot has absolutely nothing to do with its predecessor it stumbles along at a very slow speed which becomes highly annoying due to the incredibly bad script which is badly performed by very poor actors who included BRENDA STRONG! the reason i have placed an exclamation mark after her name is due to the fact that she died in the first film and played a completely different character.One thing this film is said too have going for it is the high level of quality CG effects but if you actually watch the first film you will notice that every good CG moment is repasted into this production and changed in no way whatsoever.OK lets talk about the directing,actually lets not because in my view this director seemed like he was trying to make a soft corr porno movie and not the sci-fi action film that most had hoped for,why do i say this you?well when you take in all the unnecessary nudity and cheesy as sin sexual innuendos it seems that the alien bugs have no interest anymore in getting into our galaxy and destroying our planet they seem too have more interest in getting into the Troopers pants.This film supposedly cost $3,000,000,Hmmmmmmmm it would seem to my that Glenn S.Gainor should learn to spend his money more wisely
48 out of 71 people found the following review useful: Dripping with Low-Budget Feel., 7 June 2004 Author: superduperdoug from High Level, Canada
I mean, really now. Flood the market with a good name... 2 Million people each spending 3 dollars to rent this movie, and you have made your budget. Easy right. Easy for the filmmaker. This movie was the equivalent of putting out a LOTR movie made with stick figures. Just terrible. I'm sorry, but there is something seriously unethical about doing this sort of thing to the consumer... But they don't care, all they want is stupid money.And that's a good hour and 20 minutes of my life I'll never get back... Thanks. Seriously consider not buying, or renting this movie. This movie was quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. Yet because of this it still lingers in my mind. Not cool. And I will forever remember the horridness of it. Unnecessarily gory, horribly dark action scenes where you can not see more than 3 bugs at a time, and really, really, really cheesy guns... "Hey, let's fire light at the bugs, maybe that will scare them!!!" "OK!!!11!!1!" Like really, are blanks that expensive?
34 out of 47 people found the following review useful: Exactly what you would expect, 28 May 2004 Author: ctomvelu from usa
A direct to video sequel of one of the greatest sci-fi epics of all time, this is exactly what you would expect: static, low budget, derivative, horribly acted and bearing only the slightest resemblance to the original. The FX are laughable, the acting atrocious, the plot straight out of many previous sci-fi ditties like THE HIDDEN and THE THING and BLADE RUNNER. One of the things that made the original such a masterpiece is that it is first and foremost a brilliant satire, and a sci-fi epic second. The sequel jettisons any attempt at satire and sticks several people on a single set for the majority of the flick. The only thing that makes it worthwile is some truly disgusting gore effects in the second half. Also, there is a ravishing if scary young blonde who is horny and nekkid in many of her scenes. Plus an amply endowed captain (who played a small role in the first movie) struts around in a very tight and very low cut wife beater in the second half.
48 out of 77 people found the following review useful: Not the worst film ever by a long shot, but it still gets an "F", 12 February 2005 Author: Brandt Sponseller from New York City
Series note: Although this film is something of a train wreck, it would be even worse if one didn't watch the original Starship Troopers (1997) first. The first film is excellent, and will help you figure out what is supposed to be going on in this film.A group of Starship Troopers becomes stranded while engaged in warfare on a "bug planet". They make it to a mostly abandoned makeshift fort and succeed in holding the enemy at bay outside, only to discover that they may have enemies just as lethal amongst themselves.Phil Tippet may be a genius with visual effects in other films, but in his first turn as a director, he's made a mess of Starship Troopers 2. Admittedly, it's not a complete loss. I actually ended up giving the film a 5 out of 10, even though that is a rating I usually reserve only for "so bad they're good" films. No, Starship Troopers isn't really good, but at times it threatened to get a 3 out of 10, while the closer it got to the finish line, the more it started seeming like a 7 out of 10 to me. I decided to average it. Keep in mind that in my rating system, a 6 is equivalent to the grade of D.Oddly, I thought that the script was almost worth a C (or a 7) throughout the film. The biggest problem script-wise, aside from the fact that the tone of this film is completely different than the first (a fact that will turn off many viewers, but for which I wouldn't subtract any points in itself), was that the dialogue is overburdened with pseudo-militaristic gobbledy-gook and there are far too many characters to keep track of and care about. Towards the end, when the film turned more into a horror film than its previous contentment with being a war flick (this one is never really sci-fi), I thought the ideas were actually very good. I'm a huge horror fan, and the horror material worked for me. There was a nice amount of gore and decent suspense.But those are the positives. Let's get to what the film does wrong. The biggest problems are the cinematography, lighting, and production design. For some reason, the opening scene of the film, which we could say goes on for maybe 40 minutes (far too long), is almost exclusively close-ups. We routinely have a screenful of someone's nose, mouth, or some other body part. Close-ups aren't bad in general, but when that's all a viewer sees for 40 minutes, and in the midst of what's supposed to be a grand-scale war with hundreds or thousands of combatants, it's awful. Everything is also too dark, and when it isn't dark, it's usually too bright, in that Tippet has a light or two pointing directly at the camera. And during fight scenes, we only get to see troopers face-on. We hardly ever see what they're shooting at.Now, being generous, we might say that the point of all the above is to convey the claustrophobia and chaos of war. But that's being far too generous. The original Starship Troopers conveyed the chaos of war very nicely. In Starship Troopers 2, Tippet is really trying to cover up the fact that they had no budget to build sets, acquire props, hire many cast members, pay for cgi-rendered environments or even matte paintings. There are some cgi-rendered bug aliens (and maybe a couple small things done with mechanicals) and there is one set, but that's about it. Most of the film is poorly lit and backlit so that we can't see that the actors are on a mostly empty soundstage. The close-ups are an attempt to distract our attention from the small, low-budget scale of things. All of these aspects fail miserably. At least until halfway through the film, when we begin to see some cinematography and lighting on the single set that we could call "almost competent".Even though I wouldn't subtract points for the difference in tone, it is quite a shock if you start watching Starship Troopers 2 expecting anything even remotely resembling the first film. The first film is a clever satire on society and militaristic thinking via its depiction of a future, war-hungry culture. We see clever commentaries on behavioral norms in our culture via different norms depicted in the film. We see funny things that are very similar to our present culture, but that are underscored by their temporal alienation. The first film is an ingenious, fast paced, epic scaled sci-fi/war/horror extravaganza.This film on the other hand is just about as pedestrian as you can get. Even though the horror material is good once it finally arrives, it isn't exactly groundbreaking. There is no satire here, no cleverness, it's not fast paced, and it's the complete opposite of epic scaled. Even the tongue-in-cheek military/war advertisements shown on a computer-like screen from the first film fall flat here because they're presented more like television commercials with no window dressing or explanation for context.Starship Troopers 2 isn't a complete failure, but I can't recommend it beyond its curiosity value, or for die-hard horror fans who are slightly masochistic and don't mind sitting through the war material to get to something more interesting. If a Starship Troopers 3 is ever made, more than likely you'll be able to skip this entry. As things stand now, 2 is not at all necessary to the story. This is more like an obscure footnote to the first film, about some long lost troop that no one really cares about. Only the new kind of "monster" may be of any interest.
38 out of 59 people found the following review useful: Would you like to know more, 23 January 2005 Author: hovey1908 from United States
Not since Adonal Foyle has 6 million dollars been more wasted. I generally sit through an entire movie no matter how terrible: see Mr. Wrong, but this movie pushed me to the breaking point. I fully understand that "we're in it for the species" and with the amount of fornicating in this film procreation seemed mandatory but the mobile infantry has to be good for more then just this. What would Rico think? I'm only glad that Flores and Lt. Ratjack didn't live to see this abomination. Starship Troopers 2 is a Species meets a massive pile of elephant crap. Every soldier is infected w/ a parasite and apparently the only method by which the parasite is transfered is w/ gratuitous sex scenes. I emplore the Federation to go back to Planet P, use Neil Patrick Harris to find the brain, and end this before we are cursed w/ Starshp Troopers 3. Please if you value your time and sanity avoid Starship Troopers 2 at all cost for watching the entire movie will leave you feeling like the enson from the SS Roger Miller after his encounter w/ a brain.
16 out of 20 people found the following review useful: It's pretty bad but awfully watchable ;-), 15 October 2005 Author: raypdaley182 from Coventry
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
The ensemble cast earn this very weird story such a high mark.Everyone plays their part well, whether it is as themselves being ordinary hard pushed mobile infantry or being hosts for bugs controlling their bodies.Basically this story is about the struggle with the enemy within, being unable to tell who is who. Who is on your side and who you can really trust.The best actors are the female Sgt (so much like Sgt Apone in Aliens), the girl who survives (who looks far too much like Lara Croft for her own good) and the general who's down and fighting with his men. A character like his is very rare in real combat (but someone like Col H Jones in The Falkland combat is a good comparison).This film has few locations but makes the best of them.A bunch of mobile infantry stuck on a bug-infested planet, desperate to be rescued before they all die. They start with what looks like a famous last stand on a hillock but some are sent to try and find an outpost by their brave if somewhat stupid General. The stragglers go off through terrible weather and find a tower where they can hole-up and try to call for help if they can get power and repair the communications.A set-piece of defending their tower against the bugs and then discovering a possible traitor expands the storyline into another dimension.When the general is helped into the compound by 2 unknown soldiers and 1 sleeping sexy blonde you know you are already unsure about these people. The story develops into who might be a spy or a traitor and who can be trusted.Eventually it is revealed that the 3 soldiers who helped the general were infected by bugs and trying to get bugs off the planet to infect the human race.Good effects, a poor-ish story, interesting and attention grabbing nudity.Generally not a totally awful film but there could have been a better ending and the "traitor" sacrificing his life. Neither idea seemed like they were going to go anywhere.A better ending would have helped.
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