Review of Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars

Its another one of those.. "oh it could have been so much better" films. I really do want this type of Annie film to succeed.. why ? because it has so much potential and I expect in the future , if done right will fill the gaps between big blockbusters and a need for "more" at a reasonable price. Starship troopers was my late fathers favorite Sci fi film. There were very few films he would repeatedly watch but that and Independence Day where two of them. Why.. because they were fantasy silliness with no need to engage your brain. It fell short of the book by a mile, which in my opinion is one of the best Sci Fi books written, however you have to actually engage your brain the same as when reading Forever War or An Old Man's war. All have deep and symbolic subliminal messages that can cause a paradigm shift in ones perception of modern conflict and society's concepts of morality. Back to the film sorry for the monologue lol The CGI was great.. had no problems with that at all, in fact some parts where excellently executed, however you had a feeling the budget had been spent and they were filling if the background in some parts. Casper Van Dien was fantastic.. had no problems with his acting.. your only as good as your script and I would think the co-stars may have been better had they had one. Great sound effects.. music etc was fine. I had absolutely no expectations for this film, but I wouldn't say it was a complete waste of my time. I think one of the animators had a serious crush on (Sky Marshall) Emma Watson.. post if you agree ! A big problem I had was its school boy/girl mentality, and parts where just pure juvenile. Yet other parts where violent and visceral… I would have liked them to stick to latter and made a gritty slugfest of a war film. That's the great thing with Man versus bugs, you just need a start and victorious end scatter with some dark humor and a bit of nakedness.. nothing much more. Less dialog would have been more and would have improved it 10 fold. Also would have been a good idea if they have left out the mentally addled despot as it did nothing for the film at all. Conclusion.. it's a shift in the Star Ship Trooper series, and one that could have been so much more entertaining .. but still worth a watch if you like this type of film … get it together and you could have a winner next time.