Rendered high resolution, but low fidelity.
Troopers is a future where we are at war with big bugs. They attack us, so we want retribution. The future is near-fascist with civilians serving two years in Federal Service so to become citizens. Mobile Infantry is one method of reaching citizenship. Johnny Rico, the same-named hero from the book, goes this route. His friends are enveloped in the bug war also.
Verheoven only hits a double. The characters are stock in trade for this WW2 gung-ho flick. The enemy are giant bug aliens, so no PC problems there. But the actors (as so aptly put by Newsweek) are graduates of Aaron Spelling school of "acting". Plus the lines they get to spit only just barely push the plot along--no wit or finesse here. Casper Van Dien is Rico--a square-jawed pretty boy. Denise Richards is the girl that he pines for. Her acting consists of keeping a perpetual sorority girl rictus grin stretched across her face. Dina Meyer, the stunning looker from Dragonheart, has a crush on Rico and yet he does not reciprocate. (Go figure.) Jake Busey, a science-fiction accurate clone of his father Gary, is Rico's best bud. They go thru training then off to war together.
Read the book buku years ago and all I recall is the Power Armor that is not present in this version. The book was polemic, so any increase in the action quotient is fine by me.
Overall, the movie just does not click. The spaceships are of an uninspired design. The dialogue is lifeless. The music is Robocop ripoff--heavy on the pompous horns. The interspersed commercials are more Robo-ripoff. The story is so paint by numbers. Costumes look like something you'd buy at The Gap circa 1999. Most egregious of all, the good guys' uniforms are astonishingly Wehrmacht or SS. Yessir, when I do my Federal Service, I want to wear a Nazi uniform. Sieg heil!
However, Verhoeven does know how to stage sequences. Populated city scenes with hundreds of extras, vehicles and proper architecture giving it that "real" look are his forte and he delivers.
Verhoeven's sequences truly come alive during the battles. The CGI-rendered bugs are utterly, totally, seamlessly in the scenes. That most excellent trick of having the camera "follow" the bugs give the scenes complete suspension of disbelief.
Scenes of hundreds of thousands of giant bugs are rendered with jaw-dropping believability. The attack on the outpost stands out as one of those all-time action sequences which film students will dissect for years to come.
Other F/X are knockouts. The carnage from a starship being split in half is asonishing. Shots are so overloaded with detail that your brain can't absorb it all.
I give Verhoeven credit for not bowing to a kid-friendly PG-13 rating. Troopers is R and its carnage deserves it. But after all, battles do mean people/aliens/whatever will suffer grave injuries and horrifying deaths. He does not flinch and retreat to Star Wars-clean land. My hat is off to Verhoeven for that.
Great action seguences, killer state-of-the-art F/X and little else. A damn shame. One can still see this movie and enjoy. But one does so as a superficial 14 year-old just consuming movie empty calories when one expected meat and potatoes.
Since the movie companies are notorious for opening two very similar movies close to each other, (two volcanoes, two talking pigs, two asteroids hitting the Earth, two Scottish long-ago heroes, two awaiting execution on death row, two goofballs who think they're James Bond, two alien hordes invading Earth) maybe some gutless movie suit will greenlight The Forever War, the Yin to Troopers' Yang. That book covers the same territory, but from a Vietnam-cynical perspective. Plus it has a terrific twist ending. One can only hope....
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