Johnny Rico is back after an eleven year hiatus from his first alien gorefest adventure in Starship Troopers 3: Marauder. Is his latest adventure worth a watch?
Well, you’d think in a movie that’s based around fighting bugs, it’d have more of them in it — but no. Aside from a couple of scenes where aliens come in and destroy a handful of soldiers, you’ll likely come out of Marauder highly disappointed as it switches its giant-ant shooting with religious preaching and weak one-liners; oh, yes, worse than in the first couple of movies.
The Starship Troopers series has never been a triple-A franchise right from the start but its loss of bugs and gibs give way to a simple story made worse by an overacting, underwhelming cast.
Jolene Blalock, who plays Lola Beck, is clearly placed in Marauder as an Angelina Jolie lookalike brought in to attract the young, male demographic; cleverly avoiding to dish out the money for the real deal.
The rest of the cast is just as bad as they belch out every line as if they’re going into an epic battle. Clearly, they’re not as they run around in cut-and-paste environments throughout the entirety of the film.
Marauder wouldn’t be so bad if it knew what it wanted to do. Some scenes point you towards a spoof on action movies but those type of movies strive from its friendly banter amongst the cast. Here, every moment is boring and filled with references to the previous films which will be all but lost on the general viewer.
If it wanted to be a legit action movie the serious tones touched on and acted out are severely undercut by the overall easiness of the plot. For example, how do you take it serious when soldiers are asking for autographed helmets by a singing superstar “sky marshall” one moment and getting shot up the next?
Production values are noticeably absent as the special effects present would not be out of place in a mid-90s PC video game cut scene with plain graphics and incredibly limited animations. The giant ants never convincingly interact with the actors and when they do, it’s to the same effect as when a kid plays with plastic GI Joes and mashes them together.
Marauder also makes a point to guarantee the viewer sees decapitations and body parts flying around, but are so cheaply produced that you’re quickly taken out of those short moments when they appear.
About the only bright blemish in this otherwise forgettable film are the “Citizen” mock propoganda ads. They are spliced in with enough satire and humor to effectively break up the overall blandness of the story. Had the director chosen to run with the theme presented in these clips, ST3 might’ve been an average experience, but as it stands it’s a failed experiment.
All things considered, the movie is too serious at times and doesn’t exploit the ridiculous angle of it all well enough, the rest of the time, to even passively watch. Most of the movie is spent on religious “who’s right, who’s wrong” rantings which never gel together and play out like a last minute write-up to add some substance to the lame premise. The bad, and sometimes comical, acting might give you a couple of chuckles, but you’re better off staying far and away from this one…it reeks of “generic brand.”
DVD/Bluray/UMD Release: August 5, 2008
[Editor’s Note: Walking down the aisles of your favorite retailer you’ll see movies that you’ve never heard of. Even if you’d like to know how they fare no one cares enough to review them! That’s where “Movie Watch” comes in…oh, and we’ll try to cover movies on Xbox Live from time to time. Because if you’re gonna spend those confusing Microsoft points on something other than games, it better be worth it, right?]
More Movie Watch:
Batman - Gotham Knight
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written by Carlos Macias
\\ tags: action, adventure, Angelina Jolie, cast, couple, Film, Jeffrey Dahmer, Johnny Rico, Jolene Blalock, Lola Beck, Marauder, moment, movie, right, Starship, story, time, Troopers, viewer, Watch
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