Starship Troopers (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]

DVD Review

From the bridge of the Fleet Battlestation Ticonderoga, with its sweeping galactic views, to the desolate terrain of planet Klendathu, teeming with shrieking, fire-spitting, brain-sucking special effects creatures, acclaimed director Paul Verhoeven crafts a dazzling epic based on Robert A. Heinlein's classic sci-fi adventure. Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Muldoon, and Michael Ironside star as the courageous soldiers who travel to the distant and desolate Klendathu system for the ultimate showdown between the species.

User Reviews

daveyjones
One small problem - Rating: 4/5

The movie itself is a campfest. The tongue-in-cheek humor goes well with the action.

The only problem I had with the movie is that I had to plug a USB memory stick in the back of my player in order to even get the menu to come up. Kind of a drag. For a more detailed explanation check this out:

[...]

Leslie A Munday
Disney for Adults - Rating: 4/5

It's a boy has girl - boy loses girl - boy gets girl back, movie containing every one of your favourite Hollywood movie cliches ever written (all in one place).

TBH, 5 minutes into this movie, I was thinking 1* for special effects. 1/2 an hour later, I had figured out that you must switch off your brain in order to follow this movie.

If you try to figure out, how it is that bugs, with no technology described, are able to shoot meteors across billions of miles of space to crash into densely populated Earth cities, .. your brain will likely freeze.

Once you get used to the excellent plastic sets, plastic characters, plastic acting and plastic storyline, sit back relax and be prepared for a thrill ride.

I notice many 1* reviewers are comparing the movie to Heinlen's book by the same title (which I have not read). Why can't the movie be taken for its own merits?

Spoilers: My favourite bits:
- The news feed - excellently done.
- The way the bugs hold back in order to allow the injured crew mate to be rescued so that they may give a farewell speech (which is quite impressive considering they had just been stabbed though the heart with a 10' telegraph pole).
- The ending; Brilliant, from the seriously injured officer fighting off bugs and celebrating as if 'tis purely a flesh wound', to the friend who turns out to be not such a bad person afterall (where did all the bugs go?).

Why not 5*s? Well, with a movie like this there is so much that could be done, they must have missed out something - there were actual parts where I wanted to fast-forward, just for a few seconds - and finally, SPOILER ALERT; Denise Richards does NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT, get her kit off in the movie; if only, 5*s for sure.

Saracen
Not quite perfect - Rating: 4/5

The quality of the picture on this disk is excellent, and the audio is done in lossless TrueHD 5.1 which makes for nice loud, room-shaking explosions. This disk has an editing anomaly. About an hour and a half into the movie, where the bugs are over-running the base, there is a scene of a bug getting destroyed by a group of troopers, followed by Lieutenant Rasczak and Ace killing a bug that has gotten into the compound. Then, after being told by Rico that help is on the way, we see the Lt. yelling "Fallback" as he jumps down off the catwalk. On this disk, the scene of the bug getting killed by the troopers and the other one getting shot by Rasczak and Ace is repeated, and the audio has been changed. Instead of the Lt. yelling "Fallback" and jumping into the compound (all of which was on camera), he now yells "Fallback into the compound" and it is all off camera. I double checked this on my old DVD version, and there is a difference. I was originally disappointed with this movie, as it is not particularly faithful to Heinlein's original novel (but then how many movies made from a book are?) The trouble here is that much of Heinlein's message gets lost in Paul Verhoeven's desire to produce a special effects masterpiece. In an interview after the movie was released, and in answer to the criticism that the movie had little relation to the book, Verhoeven admitted that he never even finished reading the book. If you want a version which is much closer to Heinlein's novel, check out Verhoeven's animated series "Roughnecks". There is still more action than message, but it is closer to the original novel. As has been noted in several other reviews, the Sony disk requires that you have an SD memory card installed for the movie to even play. It doesn't matter that you may not want to take advantage of the BD-Live feature, the disk still checks for the available memory and refuses to play if it can't find it. I bought a Transcend 8Gb SDHC card, and the movie plays flawlessly. Panasonic Blu-ray disks also have BD Live features, but they don't require you to buy an SD card if all you want to do is watch the movie (of course if you want to use BD Live, then you need a card). Why couldn't Sony follow this example?

David A. Long
Cult Classic - Rating: 5/5

If you are into cheesy lines and killing bugs!! Then this is your movie.
I really enjoy watching this movie. All the spoofs and corny and bug squashing.
I'm doing my part are you?

AVID MOVIE WATCHER
BLU RAY VERSION - Rating: 5/5

BLU-RAY VERSION IS WORTH BUYING. I DON'T NEED TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE MOVIE, OTHERS ALREADY HAVE. BUT, NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE TELL YOU IF IT IS WORTH UPGRADING FROM YOUR REGULAR DVD TO BLU-RAY. THIS ONE IS WORTH IT. COLORS ARE STUNNING AND SOUNDS GREAT.