Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)

Movie Info

Introducing Starship Troopers Mobile Ship Gundam…pretty much

The war against the Bugs is changing as more and more varieties of Arachnids surface.  While the Federation finds backlash from religious groups and communities who blame them for destruction, the Bugs are moving on more and more planets.  Colonel John Rico (Casper Van Dien) finds himself at odds with his old friend Dix Hauser (Boris Kodjoe), but the two must join forces when Hauser’s girlfriend and Rico’s friend Captain Lola Beck (Jolene Blalock is stranded on a planet called OM-1 with the Federation refusing to send in a rescue party.  Beck and the Federation’s star Sky Marshal Omar Anoke (Stephen Hogan) find that OM-1 might house a secret of the Bugs that could change the direction of the war.

Directed by Ed Neumeier, Starship Troopers 3:  Marauder is the final part of the “trilogy” of Starship Troopers and follows the malign Starship Troopers 2:  Hero of the Federation from 2004.  The movie was released straight-to-DVD and received positive views than its predecessor.

Sorry Bug…you’ve lost your charm & appeal

Starship Troopers was fun but had a lot of bad stuff as well.  Starship Troopers 2:  Hero of the Federation dropped everything that was fun about the first film and replaced the story with a horror tale.  Here, the movie returned to what made the first film fun but looked cheaper and continued to suffer from acting “challenges”.

The movie returned to being a skewered look at the propaganda at war.  That was a good decision.  The movie takes a rather atheist tone that could bother some religious viewers.  The followers of religion are all shown as rather stupid and it mostly leads to death for them.  Both the Bugs and the Federation realize they can use religion to fuel the war and escalate the war preying on the religious beliefs…It is rather funny, but I can see how some could be offended.

Like with the first film (and the second film as well), the movie does suffer from poor acting.  The script does call for overacting by creating stock characters, but even stock characters can have dimensions if they are developed.  Here everyone just seems to be reading their lines.  It was good to have Casper Van Dien’s character back but it doesn’t mean it was good.

Hey guys…let’s get religious!

The visuals also seem cheaper in this film.  Unlike Starship Troopers 2:  Hero of the Federation which intentionally scaled back the story to compensate for the budget, Starship Troopers 3 didn’t cut back on the effects and as a result looks rather cheap.  The Bugs and the big ending Bug just doesn’t have the look it needs to get past the straight-to-DVD trap…plus, you get lame Transformer robots.

Starship Troopers 3:  Marauder is an improvement over Starship Troopers 2, but it isn’t a great movie.  If you could tolerate the second film, you will enjoy the third film more since it did try a bit harder…but still fell short.  This film also ended the Starship Troopers “trilogy”, but it was followed by an animated film Starship Troopers:  Invasion in 2012.

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Related Links:

Starship Troopers (1997)

Starship Troopers 2:  Hero of the Federation (2004)