Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)

the audience applauded

Pretty Good

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

I am firmly convinced that these producers really don't like science fiction at all...the first incarnation was a complete disrespect to a Master Author, having almost no relationship to the book. Now they further trash a potentially excellent story line with disrespect for the viewers. No coherent dialog in this movie, and not much noticeable acting either. It begins with a battle in total darkness, with a sandstorm to add to the confusion. Then someone begins shouting incoherent orders...no evidence of discipline at all, just a rowdy free for all with a zillion bugs milling around in the sandstorm. It frankly goes down hill from there. Of course two minutes in you were assured this movie was at the bottom of its creative life anyway.If you are looking for interesting entertainment, this one ain't it!

I went to see the movie with high expectations. The first Starship Troopers movie is actually one of my favorite movies of all time. This movie is a let-down in all aspects: the story is predictable and deviates from the original, the acting is awful and there are no special effects to be honest. It seems as though the studio had 7 million dollars that needed to be burnt. In my opinion, the franchise should focus on a man vs alien-bug storyline. The movie seems as though they were trying to mimic "Species" while trying to retain the Starship Troopers title. Thus including a host of unnecessary sex scenes. I do not know how the laws concerning movies work, but I think Paul Verhoeven should sue whoever decided to make this piece of crap. If you value your money and time, do not subject yourself to the agony of sitting through this movie.

This could have been a great B movie. It wasn't. While the plot is fairly predictable, there's a lot of small (if insignificant) twists to it. It's cliché and cheesy, but the twists and turns make it more like a cheese platter than soggy cheddar on toast. The biggest problem was the opening sequence. It was meant to start with an epic battle scene, but they apparently forgot to budget for it. At all. The first 6 minutes is far lower quality than the rest of the movie (which itself is solidly B grade, costing just 5% of the original), and consists almost entirely of close ups of the cast shouting at each other and pretending to shoot.After the first few minutes, it gets better. The camera zooms out from the charters' nose hairs, because they no longer have to hide their lack of a set. It then becomes a fairly predicable horror movie, with a few terrible action scenes (which would have been better if they had a bigger budget, but isn't as abysmal as the opening).If they dropped the first 6 minutes, and pretty much all the other action scenes, it wouldn't be such a bad B movie. The rest is actually quite enjoyable, if your not squeamish (there's some gory bits).

The first Starship Troopers film, although very cheesy in parts, was very well done. It had all the elements of a great sci-fi adventure film, and it made an interesting comment on the nature of propaganda and overblown patriotism.The second film does none of these things. It's a poor imitation of the first movie. Whilst the script in ST1 was cheesy, it was good-cheesy, like Die Hard, whereas the script in ST2 feels like someone didn't even bother with a second draft. The acting is atrocious, the characters are one dimensional, the plot is weak and the film is generally badly put together. Even the graphics are lousy, there is a moment when you see a man being crushed by a heavy metal door, but the door (presumably paper-mache) visibly wobbles from side to side on his chest. I doubt there's even a level of kitsch value to the film, in the manner of an Ed Wood film, as it's clearly just been made to cash in on the success of the first film.I was surprised to hear they'd gone ahead and made a third film. It must be an improvement on this, as it couldn't be any worse!