Movie Review: Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening...whenever it is you have come across this blog.  This time I am reviewing the movie Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars.  It stars Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer and DeRay Davis.  As of 8/25/17 it has a 5.5/10 on IMDB.  "Federation trooper Johnny Rico is ordered to work with a group of new recruits on a satellite station on Mars, where giant bugs have decided to target their next attack."  This series has been very hit or miss so I'm not sure what to think about this new one.  However lets get ready to go on a bug hunt boys and girls!  DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER!?!

• Starting off good with a good running time of under 90 minutes
• Wait...is this animated?
• Uggg, this doesn't look good at all
• They just sat there while the bugs tore that guy apart?
• Wow, these up closes shots through the HUD are not good and we've already had too many
• How are the bugs getting through the gas?
• I hope it is my copy that has the voices not match the characters...god I hope so
• Who wrote this?  Edward Neumeier...who did the original?  How?  This is horrible...maybe I remember the first one better
• Was there just a bad cut...in an animated film?
• Good grief, they brought back characters from the first film, made them look weird and not the same characters?  Why?
• Yeah the story seems interesting but the animation is kind of video gamey and the inclusion of past characters with different people is weird
• Good grief, the one kid with glasses is dumb as a bug...get it
• So Rico already knows he's been set up?  
• Why did he need to use his suit?  Couldn't the pilot do that on Rico's command?
• Seriously enough of the extreme close ups!!!
• Why is the kid with the glasses still alive, that is too bad
• Yeah salute while the bugs are incoming...makes perfect sense to me!  
• They actually gave these kids nukes?  GOOD GOD!
• Yeah we just set off a bunch of nukes, lets take our helmets and masks
• Should we know who/what the Special Branch is?
• The smile on the characters are creepy; actually all the faces are
• I do like the "Want to know more" videos are back
• Well this is very anti-government, which I hear the book is
• The Sky Marshall character looks like Emma Watson
• Ah the Judge Dredd/X-Men prison on a bridge
• Some of the voice acting is just play awful
• Shoot from the ship perhaps maybe?
• So Rico is dead....again?
• I was wrong, the run time is bad...because this isn't great
• So the Q-Bomb is basically a planet buster?  Of course humans would make that an option
• 97% approval?  Really?  
• Why not bring back Jake Busey, he isn't busy I don't think (I'm wrong, he is in the upcoming Predator film)
• This is creepy seeing these characters kiss
• The facial expression on the characters just don't work, they don't match the situation
• Trying to upload to social media?  
• Dizzy looks like the martian from Mars Attacks
• Takes dozens of bullets to kill a bug but Rico can do it with a rock, a knife and a bug leg, nice
• Bugs do love to cut humans in half
• Okay the backpack minigun is cool
• This feels like a Halo movie
• Excuse me while I rip the sky?  Really?  Someone wrote that?
• General Rico?
• God bless social media
• WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DURING THE CREDITS?!?!

Well that was a movie for sure.  I guess I'll start with my rating.  I will give it a 5/10, just slightly below the IMDB average.  The voice acting was poor and the animation just weird.  Remember that weird Final Fantasy movie years ago?  How it looked real yet it didn't?  Yeah that is what this was.  I felt creepy watching this at times, especially when Rico kissed Carl/Dizzy...and I won't even get into that concept.

The characters are very stereotypical.  A rag tag group of misfit soldiers come together to save the day...after EVERYONE on Mars is killed.  Yes...everyone is seemingly dead or it is strongly implied by the Sky Marshall that that is the case.  I find it weird and actually very unsettling that Carl would allow the bugs to be on Mars for "Three Years" and only try to stop it a day or two before the attack (seemingly since the movie doesn't really have a time frame to judge it by).  

You have several side characters who mean nothing but sacrifice themselves or die and I feel like it should have meant something but it didn't really.  It meant nothing at all because we knew nothing about them.  When Dizzy died in the 1997 flick you cared because we grew to know her.  When the one armed teacher died the same.  When random cousin of glasses guy flies the transport into the plasma bug I felt...nothing.  Nope just a stereotype hillbilly died killing a bug.  

I think the biggest problem with the film is that the story line doesn't make 100% sense.  The Sky Marshall "The Smartest Woman Ever" who "is never wrong" decides to keep the colonies in check with the Federation they sacrifice an entire planet (or colony...not sure how much of the planet was terraformed).  Then blow up the entire planet, bugs and all, and all colonies will stay in check. But...um....all those deaths will just be overlooked.  Oh right because the humans are stupid and hate hillbillies!  (That is basically right from the flick actually).  I mean what if the Q-Bomb had failed even without Rico and the Lost Boys (I don't remember their troops name, the lost something) stopping it.  Also why would the bugs go after the area with the Q-Bomb?  Too many questions for this movie!

Overall unless you absolutely LOVE this series don't bother.  If you want to kill 90 minutes this will do it for you!

Until next time...Abyssinia!