Bad Movies That Are Awesome #3 Starship Troopers

Okay first off before I get to anything else, my copy of this film has the worst dvd artwork I've ever seen.

Look at it! It would have been mildly okay without the alien claw on it...but... this looks like someone at the studio got their high school nephew to photoshop something up. If this was a class project, kid would have gotten an I.

The I stands for idiot.

It was a much funnier joke in my head.

Anyways, Starship Troopers is a movie to love due to bringing back a master to the world of cinema violence.

And man what violence!

Directed by Paul Verhoven after his Razzie award winning turn as director of Showgirls, the film opens on an alien planet with the aliens being gigantic and bug like. They are tearing up people left and right. Then we see Casper Van Dien and his poorly acting head get speared through the chest by a bug.

We then go one year earlier and a high school filled with stupid people.

I only say this because it's obviously supposed to be a high school and not a one of the students is under 25. The only two who even look close is Neil Patrick Harris and Denise Richards both of whom were in their twenties.

Speaking of which, this is when Richards was incredibly attractive.

She also does not get naked in this movie.

Just saying.

Anyways we get introduced to their teachers one of which played by kick ass character actor Micheal Ironside. Casper's character's name is Johnny Rico. His parents don't want him to join the army.

Johnny is a dumb ass. Not only does he join the army for a chick, he gets infantry while his girl becomes a pilot and Doogie becomes a nazi telepath.

I'm not kidding.

We follow Rico through training as well as a little bit of Carmen (Richards). And here comes Drill Instructor Clancy Brown...Clancy always plays a bad ass, he was The Kurrigan in Highlander, prison guard in Shawshank Redemption.

Fuck he's even a bad ass in Spongebob Square Pants as the voice of Mr. Krabs.

Anyways he is your typical movie drill instructor. He breaks a cadets arm, he thinks his trainees are punks and idiots (he's right by the way). We also meet Jake Busey a saner version of his dad.

Boot camp is awesome. Bones broken, hands stabbed with throwing knives, co-ed showers, pretty awesome to watch. Rico becomes squad leader.

Pilot school however is kind of boring for the first little bit. A douchebag who's wanted Carmen since a football game in high school is her instructor.

And she falls for him and dumps Rico by video email.

Like I said...dumb ass. But Jake Busey says something that everyone can relate to.

"Funny how they always want to be friends after they rip your guts out."

And then Rico takes off the helmet of a farm boy during a live ammo exercise.

Farm boy's head get's blown threw Robocop style.

And what does Rico do?

He screams out:

"MEDIC!"

In case you hadn't gotten it before, Rico = dumbass.

And as punishment, he gets the shit whipped out of him and his command taken from him.

And then a big ass asteroid destroys their home town.

What follows is a bunch of bloody combat and cool cut scenes of anti bug propaganda. And Micheal Ironside returns as a bad ass general. Diz hooks up with Rico which of course means she dies.

This movie is great, it is chalk full of violence and surprisingly, effects that still hold up.

And before you go all "Brent just likes things dying", that's not the case at all...well yeah it is and there's a shed in the woods that attests to that but it's because of two things.

1) The violence has consequences. People lose arms, people die, getting shot is not a pleasant thing. My main problem with today's action movies is that 90% of them are rated pg or pg-13 which means younger kids can watch them. It also means there is no blood. People get shot, they fall down and don't get back up but for the camera, they might as well be sleeping. Movies like this or Robocop, a guy get's shot, you are sure that it hurts or they are dead.

2) Paul Verhoven. The man is a great director and quiet frankly, an awesome cat. He is also behind the sheer awesomeness that is Robocop. He also manages to throw in some satire. Plus he's a stand up guy. When he won a razzie for worst director for Showgirl, he was the first director to ever accept the award in person. When Dina Myer (Diz) challenged him to direct the shower scenes in Starship Troopers, nude, Verhoven dropped his pants.

Now for the hard part. This movie claims to be based off of the novel Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein.

It's about as based on the novel as Aliens is. There are huge difference, much like Verhoven's other adaption (Total Recall), they share a basic plot and some character names but that's about it. But that's not to say they aren't both good. They are just very different.

Next week we hit up a comedy about superhero porno.

Brent