Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    Nostalgia Central
    • Home
    • Blog
      • Lists
    • Television
      • TV by Decade
        • TV – 1950s
        • TV – 1960s
        • TV – 1970s
        • TV – 1980s
        • TV – 1990s
      • Comedy
      • Drama
      • Kids TV
      • Variety
      • News & Sport
      • Advertisements
    • Music
      • Music by Decade
        • Music – 1950s
        • Music – 1960s
        • Music – 1970s
        • Music – 1980s
        • Music – 1990s
      • Artists – A to K
        • Artists – A
        • Artists – B
        • Artists – C
        • Artists – D
        • Artists – E
        • Artists – F
        • Artists – G
        • Artists – H
        • Artists – I
        • Artists – J
        • Artists – K
      • Artists – L to Z
        • Artists – L
        • Artists – M
        • Artists – N
        • Artists – O
        • Artists – P
        • Artists – Q
        • Artists – R
        • Artists – S
        • Artists – T
        • Artists – U
        • Artists – V
        • Artists – W
        • Artists – X
        • Artists – Y
        • Artists – Z
      • Artists – 0 to 9
      • Genres
      • Music on Film & TV
      • One-Hit Wonders
      • Playlists
      • Online Radio
    • Movies
      • Movies by Decade
        • Movies – 1950s
        • Movies – 1960s
        • Movies – 1970s
        • Movies – 1980s
        • Movies – 1990s
      • Movies – 0 to 9
      • Movies – A to K
        • Movies – A
        • Movies – B
        • Movies – C
        • Movies – D
        • Movies – E
        • Movies – F
        • Movies – G
        • Movies – H
        • Movies – I
        • Movies – J
        • Movies – K
      • Movies – L to Z
        • Movies – L
        • Movies – M
        • Movies – N
        • Movies – O
        • Movies – P
        • Movies – Q
        • Movies – R
        • Movies – S
        • Movies – T
        • Movies – U
        • Movies – V
        • Movies – W
        • Movies – X
        • Movies – Y
        • Movies – Z
    • Pop Culture
      • Fads
      • Toys & Games
      • Fashion
      • Decor
      • Food & Drink
      • People
      • Technology
      • Transport
    • Social History
      • 1950s Year by Year
      • 1960s Year by Year
      • 1970s Year by Year
      • 1980s Year by Year
      • 1990s Year by Year
      • Events
    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1990s
    Movies - 1990s Movies - S 3 Mins Read

    Starship Troopers (1997)

    Share
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email

    Dutch director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop and Total Recall) cast this film with a diligent eye for tits, ass, gleaming teeth, toned muscles, bulging crotches and brows unlined by thought.

    He then sampled more shamelessly than Coolio, lifting chunks of Star Wars (1977), Alien (1979), The Terminator (1984), assorted war movies, westerns, Nazi propaganda films and his own fuck-bunny flop, Showgirls (1995), in an unstinting effort to distance the viewer from originality and feeling.

    Casper Van Dien plays the studly hero, Johnny Rico, a high school graduate in Argentina who joins the federal army not so much to blow bugs to hell but to get laid.

    The object of his lust is Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards), who has already signed up for aviator school.

    Johnny’s maths score isn’t good enough for him to make the cut as a starship pilot so he’s shipped off to the mobile infantry camp for bug mop-up, leaving Carmen to the drooling attentions of flyboy Zander Barcalow (Patrick Muldoon) and Johnny to work out his sexual frustration with infantry recruit Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), a babe who enjoys ripping off her shirt, and Johnny’s, for mutual chest licking and nipple biting.

    You might call these four actors graduates of the Aaron Spelling School of Dramatic Arts. Van Dien, Richards, and Meyer all won credits on Beverly Hills 90210, while Muldoon matriculated at Melrose Place.

    To cast the role of Carl Jenkins, who, as the brains of the group, rises to the top of military intelligence, the filmmakers had to venture beyond the stud muffins and Muffys of the Spelling stable to find Neil Patrick Harris, late of Doogie Howser MD.

    As you might have guessed, none of the acting requires any heavy lifting.

    starshiptroopers_001

    What is disturbing is the sadistic pleasure that Verhoeven seems to take in showing these pretty young things getting bruised, maimed, pierced and penetrated by insect tentacles.

    Johnny’s leg is severed and sewn back on, Zander gets his brain sucked out by a jumbo bug that resembles Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now (1979), and Dizzy chokes up blood while speaking her last words to Johnny: “if I die, it’s OK because I got to have you”.

    The film accelerates relentlessly like a video game. Verhoeven’s style of no foreplay and all orgasms is gold for pop culture junkies with attention-deficit disorder.

    But the main emphasis is all on squashing bugs.

    Visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett and his team work miracles with the creepy crawlies.

    Earning an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects, Starship Troopers delivered some of the coolest giant bugs ever put on screen. They buzz, they swarm, heave and attack with such lifelike menace that you want to reach for the Raid.

    The actors are no match for these digitised demons, and that’s the trouble. All the wonders in Starship Troopers are computer generated – the rest feels untouched by human hands.

    Verhoeven has eliminated such pesky matters as character, emotion and substance, and reduces the plot to a video game face-off between aliens and weapons, with his itchy hand revving the joystick.

    Johnny Rico
    Casper Van Dien
    Dizzy Flores
    Dina Meyer
    Carmen Ibanez
    Denise Richards
    Ace Levy
    Jake Busey
    Carl Jenkins
    Neil Patrick Harris
    Sergeant Zim
    Clancy Brown
    Sugar Watkins
    Seth Gilliam
    Zander Barcalow
    Patrick Muldoon
    General Owen
    Marshall Bell
    Breckinridge
    Eric Bruskotter
    Kitten Smith
    Matt Levin
    Katrina
    Blake Lindsley
    Shujimi
    Anthony Ruivivar
    Captain Deladier
    Brenda Strong
    Jean Rasczak
    Michael Ironside
    Mr Rico
    Christopher Curry
    Mrs Rico
    Lenore Kasdorf
    Djana’D
    Tami-Adrian George
    Corporal Bronski
    Teo
    Lieutenant Willy
    Steven Ford
    Corporal Birdie
    Ungela Brockman
    Sergeant Gillespie
    Curnal Aulisio
    Sky Marshall Dienes
    Bruce Gray
    Sky Marshall Meru
    Denise Dowse

    Director
    Paul Verhoeven

    Video

    Related Posts

    • Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
      Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
      Tormented by the imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust from which intelligent machines will emerge to crush the last vestiges…
    • Spaceballs (1987)
      Spaceballs (1987)
      When Mel Brooks created this typically uneven parody of Star Wars (1977) and other space adventures, he went to extreme lengths…
    • Judge Dredd (1995)
      Judge Dredd (1995)
      Star Wars (1977) meets Ben-Hur (1959) in director Danny Cannon's imaginatively over-the-top science-fiction rendering of the celebrated 2000 AD comic-strip hero. The…
    • Toy Story 2 (1999)
      Toy Story 2 (1999)
      Toy Story 2 is among the finest kid-films-for-adults, with a truly heartbreaking subtext - what happens to toys when kids…
    • Space Jam (1996)
      Space Jam (1996)
      When the classic Looney Tunes characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, etc) are forced to play an important basketball…
    • Robocop 2 (1990)
      Robocop 2 (1990)
      The original movie was a smart comic strip pastiche. This one is just a comic book, full stop and seems…
    • Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
      Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
      The actors are wallpaper, the jokes are juvenile, there's no romance, and the dialogue lands with the thud of a…
    • Spies Like Us (1985)
      Spies Like Us (1985)
      A pair of inept government workers are recruited to act as unwitting and disposable decoy agents for the CIA on…

    Disney
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleSpeed (1994)
    Next Article Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

    Comments are closed.

    Follow us
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
    • Instagram
    You May Also Like
    • Blue Angels
      1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 1 (USA) 39 x 30 minute episodes Long […]
    • Wizadora
      1 9 9 3 – 2 0 0 0 (UK) 204 x 9 minute episodes “Time […]
    • Partridge Family, The
      The Partridge Family was put together by producer Wes Farrell […]
    • Venetians, The
      Australian band The Venetians formed in late 1982 when vocalist […]
    • Adverts, The
      With their raw, enthusiastic immaturity, The Adverts were a […]
    • Comic Relief
      1 9 8 8 – Current (UK) Exploiting the talents of comedians […]
    Twitter Feed
    Please note


    Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today.
    Popular Tags
    1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1975 1976 Action Figures Amicus Arcade games Australia Beach movies Beatles Blaxploitation Board games Britpop Canada Crime Disco Disney Doo-Wop Elvis Presley Girl groups Glam Goth Hammer Heavy Metal Irwin Allen Labels Merseybeat Mod revival Motown New Romantic New Wave NWOBHM Oi! One-hit wonders Power Pop Pub rock Punk Radio Scotland Ska Soul music Surf music
    Search Nostalgia Central
    Copyright © 1998, 2022 Nostalgia Central
    • About
    • Contact
    • FAQ

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.