STARSHIP TROOPERS. Visually spectacular science fiction satire
In essence, all you need is a fast computer and, for example, Mel Gibson, and you have a blockbuster with sensational special effects. Unfortunately, computer-generated effects have somewhere along the way lost the magic of the models, puppets, or stop-motion animation used in the past. Let’s be honest; Jar Jar Binks from The Phantom Menace is a total mistake, and the best special effects, to quote Robert Zemeckis, are the ones you don’t see (exemplified by works like Forrest Gump or The Truman Show).
However, Paul Verhoeven made a breakthrough with Starship Troopers because, even though the film is still ridiculed for the simplicity of the script, one thing cannot be denied. It is the perfect combination of computer-generated characters with the performances of actors. Starship Troopers is an example of flawless space action cinema that, visually, remains one of the most interesting sci-fi works created to this day! Why? you might ask. After all, ‘serious’ cinema connoisseurs describe Verhoeven’s film as ‘stupid,’ ‘shallow,’ overly bloody, and mocking the sci-fi genre on screen. Starship Troopers is just continuous shooting, an indulgence in excessive gruesomeness of severed limbs, and poorly chosen cast of sweet-looking young actors. As for the plot itself, the accusations are the heaviest – fighting bugs in space? That sounds like an idea for cheap sci-fi, not a script for a serious, high-budget movie. Soldiers vs. oversized bugs? Just thinking about such a clash brings a smile to your face – ridiculous idea, isn’t it?
True! This is exactly what Verhoeven intended; to go against the grain. When everyone around was striving for intellectual journeys into space, the director decided to return to basics and, with a high budget at his disposal, create an innovative, effortlessly entertaining sci-fi spectacle. Verhoeven turned everything upside down – our heroes are not pumped-up tough guys but high schoolers straight from school, joining the military with smiles on their faces. Service guarantees citizenship, says one advertising slogan enticing them, and the military finances studies, says another. Boys and girls plucked straight from Beverly Hills 90210 embark on training, where they learn military routines, and suddenly, these young people entering adult life become space fleet pilots and marines – as it turns out later, condemned to the bloodiest battles with cosmic bugs. Women fight side by side with men – the dream of G.I. Jane becomes a reality.
Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien), head over heels in love with Carmen Ibanez (one of Denise Richards’s early roles), decides to join the military and fight against the bugs, inspired by his beloved. Since Rico had mediocre academic results, he inevitably becomes a marine, meaning he will fight bugs in close combat on the battlefield. At the same time, as Rico undergoes the tough school of life, Ibanez rises through the ranks as a pilot, and Rico’s best friend becomes an expert in the field of studying bug psychology (!). Amid the screams of the dead, in time with the series of shots from rifles, in the bloody scenery of severed limbs and torn bodies of young soldiers, we follow the fates of our heroes, among whom there is also room for love, jealousy, and private tragedies. All this has been incredibly staged, flawlessly filmed, acted, and as a whole, it is a very tasty morsel, not only for the bug.
Bugs… why such an opponent? The scene where a blue, powerful charge is launched from the giant bug’s abdomen almost makes you laugh. Also, the whole conflict of humanity with cosmic bugs smells of kitsch… But the further development of events does not give the viewer a chance to mock the film – Verhoeven leads his soldiers into a slaughter with deadly seriousness, where legs, arms, and human bodies fly in front of the camera thrown by the frenzied bugs. It is one of the greatest paradoxes in cinema; everything in the film and in the characters is arranged so that the last thing the viewer expects is the tearing apart of his favorite character into shreds. So despite the superficial simplicity and naivety of the script and the cinematic reality, we get drawn into this bloody war, and as a result, we start taking everything… seriously.
The slightly fascist taste of training and the appearance of uniforms, as well as the gravity of news services reporting on the war efforts of our heroes, contribute to this, as well as the piety of the presented world; weapons, vehicles, ideologies, ubiquitous propaganda, the epic scale of the battle with the bugs, etc. The special effects in Starship Troopers are already a true masterpiece that legitimizes the entire plot, and the bombastic and uplifting music adds a blunt but not intrusive touch of pathos to the film. Thus, a film was created with a wink, telling a story half-jokingly, half-seriously, but certainly being an excellent example of one of the best sci-fi works in recent years! Starship Troopers may be to some extent a playful convention, but who cares when Verhoeven’s film can be watched many times, and you always look at it with the same joy as Rico and his team mow down cosmic vermin with bursts of machine gun fire to the brilliant music by Basil Poledouris!
Rafał Donica