Hollywood is a frequent target of yours truly. No raspberries today as it’s time to SALUTE those deep-pocketed studios out yonder for fostering the career of Paul Verhoven — easily the greatest big-budget exploitation filmmaker going. There’s no such thing as GRATUITOUS sex and violence in Verhoven’s flicks because they’re inherently integral to the plot. Hitch had his blondes. Paul’s got blood ‘n’ boobs! Who else would follow the boffo success of Basic Instinct with a fleshy flick about cat-fighting Showgirls? NO ONE!!! Who else would reimagine The Invisible Man as a horn’d up psychopath!!? NO ONE!!! And above all others Starship Troopers (1997, 130 minutes) may best illustrate what makes Mr. Verhoven the sort of Hollywood big-wig CineSchlockers can readily embrace.
The movie: When Mormon settlers colonize the wrong planet, mankind finds itself at odds with a mean, nasty insect race who take to hurling value-sized meteors at our puny blue planet. These unruly bugs must be squashed and it’s the job of every good citizen to see to it that happens. In this sci-fi society, perfection is a way of life, order is mandatory and citizenship, the right to vote, to have children, to watch all the cartoons you want is only earned by military service. Enter four friends: Square-jawed Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) is itching to slide into home with his buxom honey Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards) who won’t wave him in til he "decides" to join the mobile infantry.
Meanwhile, Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer) is ga-ga for Johnny, who’s clueless, and Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris) just likes to play mind-control games with his pet ferret. Each take their separate service paths after graduation. Carmen is an honest-to-goodness space cadet who finds herself behind the wheel of a massive starship. Carl disappears into the shadowy world of military intel. Rico and Dizzy just HAPPEN to wind up in the same infantry unit, well, she MIGHT’ve had a little something to do with that. Soon it’s off to Bug Central, otherwise known as planet Klendathu, to kick arachnid keister with good ol’ fashion MACHINE GUNS and the occasional well-placed nuclear pineapple. Unfortunately, the hide tanning doesn’t quite go the Earthlings’ way as tens of thousands of bloodied troopers are hurled into the air and hacked in half with extreme prejudice by ravenous bugs on world-wide TV courtesy of the Federal Network (about a hair shy of the Fox News Channel).
Yet our heros soldier on despite seemingly insurmountable odds. Rico even manages to find time to swap punches with Carmen’s new flyboy toy (Patrick Muldoon). But fear not, the rest of the flick OOZES with deliriously gruesome gore. Heads tumble. Legs fling through the air. Insect innards splatter. And there’s even coed showers to wash all the unsightly gack away. CineSchlocker fave Michael Ironside plays the hawkish, one-armed teacher who backs up his "might is right" rhetoric by strapping on a mechanical prosthetic so he can lead ground assaults against swarms of razor-legged arachnids. Oh, and don’t overlook "Golden Girl" Rue McClanahan as the kids’ blind biology teacher.
Notables: Six breasts. 125 corpses (plus about 9,308,563 off-screen deaths). Multiple decapitations. Puking. Futuristic football. Mooning. Fiddle playing. Horse whipping. One dead dog. Lite S&M. Insect mind meld. Multiple amputations. Throwing knife to the hand. Giant cockroach dissection. Hiney slapping. Massive acid loogies.
Quotables: Grizzled trooper welcomes new recruits, "Fresh meat for the grinder, eh?" Drill instructor apes Goodfellas, "DO YOU THINK I’M FUNNY!? DO I MAKE YOU LAUGH!? DO YOU THINK I’M A COMEDIAN, SON!?" Furious Buenos Aires survivor howls, "THE ONLY GOOD BUG IS A DEAD BUG!!!" Rico’s squad leader as they descend on Klendathu, "We’re going in with the first wave! Means MORE bugs for us to kill! You SMASH the entire area!!! You KILL anything that has more than TWO legs!!!"
Time codes: TV reporter gets ripped in two (1:50). Second FedNet report: Children play with guns / Writer of flick is condemned to death / Cow and Mormons butchered by bugs (22:19). God bless Mr. Verhoven (29:08). Our hero gets a high-tech Dear John letter (38:45). Cadet has his brainpan ventilated (41:22). Third FedNet report: Doogie demonstrates how to properly machine gun a warrior bug / Kiddos stomp insects in the street (52:32). Two-man brawl to the plaintive crooning of Mazzy Star‘s "Fade Into You" (56:50). Diz finally bags her man (1:21:00). The big, Zulu-inspired CGI money shot (1:29:00). Final FedNet report featuring an unpleasant probing (1:58:10).
Final thought: Paul Verhoven is a masterful, latter-day exploiteer whose fiendishly subversive, gloriously gruesome space opera goose steps with an infectious twinkle in its eye. An absolute must have for any self-respecting CineSchlocker.