I'm ALWAYS suspicious when directors claim their poorly received films were misunderstood because they were "satire." But yeah, Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers was DEFINITELY satire. The problem is that the film ITSELF forgets it's satire for the whole second half of its run-time. In the last half it becomes a standard war thriller. It makes us care too much for its characters, makes us too invested in their survival. You can't have your cake and eat it, too, with satire. Compare this film with Trey Parker's Team America: World Police (2004): there's not a frame of that film that doesn't remind you it's satire. If you were to accidentally catch just the last half of it on TV, you'd think it was a standard sci-fi thriller. The battle scenes are great and the effects still hold up. But the film fails to use them properly to achieve its satiric goals. It's a mess. A fun mess to watch, perhaps, but a mess nonetheless.
6/10
I feel like Starship Troopers is more of a propaganda film from the universe it takes place in than just a satire of propaganda. There's a big emphasis on the romance of the "teens" and the information scenes of "Would You Like to Know More?". And that explains why the satire is gone at parts. The teen romance stuff should've been more satirical but instead feels like its taken directly from a 50s or 60s teen movie. I think this was an intentional weird juxtaposition with attacking bug aliens to be satirical but those parts still don't work for me. Starship Troopers is pretty fun but I easily prefer Robocop and Total Recall when it comes to Verhoeven's sci-fi "trilogy".
ReplyDeleteOh same. At least TOTAL RECALL and ROBOCOP have a general cohesion of tone.
Delete