Starship Troopers

In a continuation of viewing all of Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven’s work, however accidental such a plan came about, it must be noted that Starship Troopers (1997) is a fascinating continuation on Verhoeven’s critique of the celebratory and gung-ho response to violence. Crafted as a film about intergalactic crime with insects (i.e. nature) fighting against man, this is a film that is adamantly political and critical of the military response to potential threats. As such, though its surface acts as a soap opera tale about Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) a man trying to prove himself to the woman he loves, Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards), Verhoeven and screenwriter Ed Neumeier appraise the 1940s propaganda pictures by refashioning them here as blindly patriotic and fascist toward any other/Other.

As such, the film becomes a stark critique on the desensitization of individual thought processes which leads to the mobilization of herd mentality and blind submission to a "higher" government authority. Johnny’s patriotism, as well as the other thousand’s patriotism, lead to mindless deaths from bugs that a newscaster notes didn’t even start the war. Yet, as the film shows, Johnny doesn’t care to consider such technicalities, but instead assumes a trigger-happy and heroic stance against the enemy, spouting clichés and empty rhetoric. As such, the film has a resonance in the political climate of many eras (WW2 [remember Verhoeven’s Soldier of Orange], the Korean War, Vietnam), and even allows one to supplement today’s political critique into a film where the critique didn't yet work.

These political issues are bookended by a propaganda piece for the Mobile Infantry campaigning righteously and declaring their point of view against the bugs, wherein the film gains some of its best and easiest critique simultaneously. Verhoeven has never been a subtle director and here the film’s vision embraces its excess concurrently with his mise en scene, exploring richly colorful and materialistic cities on the humans’ planet, and highlighting the alien yet strangely beautiful and austere quality on the aliens’ planet.

While this underscores the political angle, the film also has its eye on gender critique as well, with the alien brain trusts composed of giant vaginas. While this bit isn’t elucidated fully, it doesn’t like too much to suggest that the alien killer bugs are male and that the queens are that which keeps the species in good government.

If all of this is ignoring the mediocre acting on display, then welcome to the typical American Verhoeven release. His critical approach to American consumerism and materialism seems to have translated into a refusal to orient himself with quality actors and allowing their vacant or inappropriate performances to likewise exist as critique. Here it’s largely Denise Richards who suffers, as the supporting cast members are all quite good, including an excellent Michael Ironside.

Though the film works as a statement of how these archetypal characters display a lack of mourning and instead sublimate any internal reaction into obedience to “higher” military ideals, the film simply is a subversively thrill as the creatures storm the men in the final hour. It’s exciting action filmmaking and visually impressive even today, even as it subverts its normative society into a hypocritical war-driven society.

Starship Troopers: 8.5/10