20140415: SciFi Review--Starship Troopers 3

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American/South African/German live action feature length film, 2008, rated R, 108 minutes, SciFi, action.  Spoken word is English.
2. IMDB: 4.4/10.0 from 16,698 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 9 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 49% liked it from 926 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.0/5.0 from 681,498 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Edward Meier.
6. Starring: Casper van Dien as Colonel Johnny Rico, Jolene Blalock as Captain Lola Beck, Stephen Hogan as Sky Marshal Omar Anoke, Boris Kodjoe as General Dix Hauser, Amanda Donohoe as Admiral Enolo Phid, Marnette Patterson as Holly Little.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Johnny Rico is on an agrarian planet Roku San where the Bugs are attacking.  For various PR reasons, Anoke, Beck, and Dix come to the planet.  The Federation personnel become embroiled in a bar fight while hoping to relax with a drink.


2. The Federation mounts a defence against a Bug attack, but sustain a bad defeat.  The few who escape the scene of the defeat, include Rico, Beck, Anoke, and Dix.  The ship seems to make a clean get away, but they are forced out of hyperspace.  The ship is critically damaged by plasma streams sent from the Bugs.  The higher ups escape and some return to Earth.


3. Johnny gets the blame for the failure at Roku San.  The calls for help from the Sky Marshall and Captain Beck are classified by Admiral Phid.  Dix saves Johnny from being hanged, and uses him to mount a raid to rescue Anoke and Beck.  Phid files a false video that Dix and Sky Marshall Anoke were killed by a bombing done by religious a opposition group.


4. Sky Marshall Anoke was being controlled by a Bug brain, so his jump into religious fervour eventually made a bit more sense.  He thought of the Bug brain as God, and obeyed it, as we saw in the Roku San incident.


5. Will Johnny's group rescue the Sky Marshall and the Captain?  Will the truth come out?  Will Phid be stopped?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Better than ST 2, not as good as ST1 or ST4.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 There was too much CGI, not all of which was good.  The regular photography plus green screen was not so bad.


2. Sound: 5/10 Woof.  Voices often sound hollow.   Incidental music was not effective, but was irritating.  The leveling of the sound was incredibly poor.


3. Acting: 6/10 Stephen Hogan and Boris Kodjoe were totally worthless.  Van Dien, Donohoe, and Blalock were considerably better.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 This wretched script makes the original Starship Troopers look articulate and coherent.  The political satire is laid on too thick: hangings without trials, arrests without cause, strongly enforced double standards (I can hang you, but you cannot insult me).  There is talk of advanced weaponry, followed by footage of trench warfare, so the advanced weaponry consists of shovels.  The interruptions for the Federation propaganda are more than a bit too much.  Given the willingness to kill anyone for any reason, one wonders why the Federation did not just explode every Bug infested planet.  This is explained in the original book; in this movie, not so much.