Rent Starship Troopers 2 (2004)

Not a patch on the original - but it's not that bad :) - Starship Troopers 2 review by RP

The first film in this series, 'Starship Troopers', is an excellent big budget, lots-of-effects space fiction film with much irony and satire on a future society. It was directed in 1997 by Paul Verhoeven who had previously directed 'RoboCop' and the original 'Total Recall'.

After a gap of 7 years came this low budget direct-to-video so-called 'sequel', this time directed by Phil Tippett, who has a decent pedigree since he supervised the creature effects on the original film and won an Oscar for the effects in 'Jurassic Park'. And to be fair, the creature effects here - although on a much more modest scale - are quite reasonable.

As a 'sequel' it's only the creatures that are anything like the original film. Only one actor from the earlier film is here (confusingly playing a different role) and the story has nothing in common - it's like an old-fashioned western, with a (sort of) cavalry detachment holed up in a fort while surrounded by marauding Indians and awaiting rescue. Here, it's a detachment of Mobile Infantry holed up in an abandoned outpost surrounded by arachnid aliens and awaiting rescue.

The film is essentially in three acts: (1) infantry under attack in pitched battle followed by retreat, (2) survivors secure position in abandoned outpost, (3) attack from within by aliens. This third act is more of a horror film rather than sci-fi in nature as the infantry are infested by aliens who take them over one by one.

The film has received some extremely poor reviews - but I think that's a little harsh. It really suffers in comparison to the original, but put that from your mind and it's a pretty run-of-the-mill creature feature with added horror and a bit of nudity thrown in for good measure. I've seen an awful lot worse and I didn't hate it too much so I'll give it an over generous 3/5 stars.