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Much like Doomsday, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder might not be classified as horror, but when gigantic bug monsters slaughter space soldiers, I enlist for duty and release a news wire report to you. This straight to DVD sequel brings back Casper Van Dien to the war after he sat out the first sequel, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation.

This time around, Johnny Rico, who’s in hot water after disobeying a superior, leads a group of rag-tag soldiers on a top secret mission to rescue a downed Sky Marshall, whose death would be devastating to morale. On the planet, the Marshall and his survivors encounter smart bugs, tricky warriors, and an alarming and gigantic sized bug the likes of which have never been seen before. Can the Marshall be saved? Can Rico be the hero again? What is Marauder? Would you like to know more? Continue….

Kills

The war scenes at the beginning spill a lot of Federation blood and thousands of bugs are blown to bits. There are a variety of bug related stabbings and soldier related shootings, some vaporizations and explosions. Dozen upon dozens die.

Ills

People die in gross ways, but the gore isn’t as good (or bad?) as it was in the original. Stabbings, cut heads, explosions, human puppet shows, there is enough here to keep it mildly interesting, but the modest budget stops them from going all out.

Lust

We get the required co-ed shower and a few glimpses of some female anatomy, but again it pales in comparison to the first one. No reason to drop your trousers during this film, though Jolene Blalock has some serious lips on her and Marnette Patterson is a major league cutie.

Learning

Gigantic governments that glorify service and the military are awesome! I mean bad. Terrible. And they do bad things to their people and lie and manipulate. But their propaganda is top fucking notch! Dealing with bugs is serious business.

Review

I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would. Sure, it’s low budget (listed around $20 million, which I think is probably high and a lot went to Casper) and the special effects aren’t great, but its a fun little movie. The coolest part revolves around the Marauder units, which are armored suits that can basically just march into a pile of bugs and blow the shit out of everything. They were definitely cool but not in the movie nearly long enough. If there is a part four, I demand MORE MORE MORE powered armor.

The acting is stale at times and the sets minuscule, but it does feel like a continuation of the Starship Troopers universe. It’s nice having Van Dien back, though he doesn’t get as much screen time as he should (the story is split between two separate parties) and most of his lines are one-liners, though lets not forget the first film had its share of cheese.

Still present are the themes of fascism and an over reaching government, though this time around they pick up another easy target – religion. I found it to be slightly heavy handed at times, but interesting and worth a laugh or two. The ending propaganda scenes are pretty funny and all the little intercut scenes are just as fun as they used to be.

Don’t come to Starship Troopers 3 expecting a movie worthy of the very intelligent and exciting first one, but if you’re looking for a little cheesy fun and you can look past some poor CGI, you might have a little bit of fun playing with this movie. I know I did, but I’m a geek for blood, bugs, and space wars.