Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1430 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-06-11
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Dutch, English, French
• Dubbed in: Italian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 124 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A gloriously over-the-top treat, Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers takes the militaristic moralising of Robert Heinlein's pulp classic and sets about undermining it mercilessly. Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) desperately wants to join the Mobile Infantry and kill some Earth-threatening alien bugs. He also desperately wants Carmen (Denise Richards), but only gets to fulfil one ambition in the second of Verhoeven's futuristic satires (also cowritten with his RoboCop scriptwriter Ed Neumeier).

Set in a fascistic future where kids must do military service to qualify as citizens, own property or even have babies, the film's dark Vietnam and Nazi-era parallels are all the more disturbing given its deceptively sunny Beverly Hills 90210 teenage cast (though scenery-chewing veteran Michael Ironside steals the movie as tough-talking Lt Rasczak). The CGI arachnids are among the most convincing and dangerous-looking creatures ever seen on screen, and with the movie clocking up the highest number of blanks ever fired on a film set, it's also pretty loud! Verhoeven went on to be Executive Producer of the Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles animated TV series a couple of years later.

On the DVD: Starship Troopers in this DVD incarnation can now be played continuously on one side of the disc (the original Region 2 release version was that crime against the DVD format, a "flipper"). You'll also feel really spoiled by the extras here: five deleted scenes (approximately six minutes) pad out Carmen's love triangle problems. There are impressive screen tests for Denise Richards and Casper Van Dien (three-and-a-half minutes). An eight-minute featurette zips by with key interviews and fact flinging. And a real treat is three scene developments with layers of FX work explained by Verhoeven. But what makes this DVD essential is the director's enthusiastic commentary alongside screenwriter Ed Neumeier: dissing astrology, making a stand for feminist issues, saying how he went nude to placate the actors for their shower scene, and drooling with praise for his FX team, Verhoeven makes a fascinating statement that "war makes fascists of us all". After a studio disclaimer, and beginning with his reaction to the film's critique in Time Magazine, this is no-holds-barred fun. --Paul Tonks

Video Description
DVD Special Features

Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Languages in Dolby Digital: English/French/Italian
Subtitles: English/French/Dutch/English Close Captioned

Synopsis
Some time in the future, a group of friends joins Earth's military forces after high school graduation to battle the insectoid Klendathu. One fights for the chance to be a renowned pilot (Denise Richards), one for revenge (Casper Van Dien), and one for the love of a good man (Dina Meyer), but interpersonal relationships take a backseat to the firepower leveled against (and returned from) the chitinous aliens. Paul Verhoeven's subversively humourous and thrilling sci-fi film is adapted from the classic science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein.

Customer Reviews

You need to watch it several times to appreciate it
When I first saw this I thought the film was pretty silly, but now that I've seen it again I see why it's a true cult classic! Paul Verhoeven of Basic Instinct fame has a strange sense of humour. I love the fact that the film is set mainly in Buenos Aires, and the casting for this movie is perfect. All the actors are "robot-like" in appearance, like they've all had facelifts (they probably have). If you're tired and want a bit of mindless fun, this movie will do the trick.

The unintentional 'Airplane' of sci-fi
I saw about twenty minutes of this on tv yesterday, from the point where some smart arsed girl is in a spaceship plotting routes all by herself, and working with some guy that wants to sleep with her, just before the whole bug thing happens.

I was starting to wonder whether it was just typical Hollywood writing...but then I came to the conclusion it MUST BE A SPOOF film, and felt silly for thinking the film was talking itself seriously.

So the spaceship gets attacked, then we switch to scenes on earth with the military learning that Buenos Aires has been destroyed, and one guy's parents live there or something, but he's not TOO distraught on learning they've just died. Although he's just signed a paper to quit the army, he convinces his boss to stay, (his boss 'agrees', by turning a blind eye to his assistant ripping up the resignation letter, true Cheesywood style) and the chap who's lost his parents, and now wants to fight these (don't snigger) giant bugs, even manages a smile when he realises that he's allowed to stay and fight.

Anyway...so then there's some awful 'news reports' section, with so called news broadcasts from everywhere, about our imminent fight with these giant bugs (again, stop sniggering), and the people that wrote the script for this little news report section thought they were being funny - well they were seriously wrong. At this point, I honestly thought that maybe it isn't a spoof film after all - it's just A KIDS FILM! That's why the humour is so juvenile, and the script so bad.

But wait a minute...Starship Troopers is an 18 film - so it CAN'T be for kids. So it's not a kid's film...so it's either a spoof or a film so bloody awful that the script writers deserve to be chained to chairs on some public stage, where people can come and look at them and laugh at them, and shout things like 'what the HELL were you thinking?' say over a period of a couple of weeks.

I keep seeing people trying to justify the film saying it has 'this and that' political points - but really you could look into most films and read into them deeper than the director even intended, and say 'look at how clever this film is, because it quietly says 'blah blah blah''. It's utter rubbish. If you have a film, or an idea for a film, with important points to make, then don't make it look like the unintentional 'Airplane' of Sci-Fi.

Read the book
The film is based on the book of the same title. The film bears little resemblance to the book though and has a very different style and tempo. The book is thoughtful,and sensitive, the film simplistic and brutal. The CGI was great when it came out, very exciting, but it's a pity that they didn't get more of the book in there. The removal in the film of the massive air drops by pod and turning it into troopship drop made it a bit weak but the removal from the story of the integral power armour element where they had weapons up to nukes and replacing those in the film with just assault rifles was really odd. The film also made it seem like the Earth society was a very right wing almost fascist one, the book wasn't like that. This was a film which people enjoyed it a lot but where fans of the book are going to spend years wondering what could have been.