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It's surprising that 1997's Starship Troopers never managed to spawn a proper franchise. Directed by Paul Verhoeven and based on Robert Heinlein's 1959 sci-fi novel, the original Troopers was a spectacular action extravaganza, conveying a sprawling war story backed by strong social satire and competent production values. Alas, its disappointing box office squashed series potential, only leading to a cancelled TV series and two horrendous straight-to-video sequels that fans would prefer to forget about. Luckily, 2012's Starship Troopers: Invasion is a slight but welcome step in the right direction despite being a moderately low-budget, straight-to-video, all-CGI production. Invasion restores a convincing sense of scope to the series, contributing to and expanding the Troopers mythology in the hope of finally sparking that long-overdue franchise. It's not perfect by any means, but it's impressive enough considering its origins, and die-hard Troopers fans should have a ball with the action scenes.
In deep space, the mobile infantry soldiers aboard the spaceship Alesia are assigned to clear out a bug infestation at military outpost Fort Casey. Meanwhile, intelligence officer Carl Jenkins (Justin Doran, replacing Neil Patrick Harris from the original movie) commandeers the spaceship John A. Warden for a classified mission, much to the chagrin of the ship's captain, Carmen Ibanez (Luci Christian, replacing Denise Richards). Joining the soldiers aboard the Alesia following their latest mission, Ibanez soon receives word that the John A. Warden has stopped responding, suggesting that bugs might have overrun the ship. The soldiers, along with Ibanez and the team's incarcerated leader, Henry "Hero" Varro (David Wald), are sent to board the John A. Warden to investigate, with no clue that they could be walking into an insidious trap set by the alien bugs. Overseeing the operation from afar is General Johnny Rico (David Matranga, replacing Casper Van Dien), who's compelled to get involved when the John A. Warden begins an unstoppable descent towards Earth.
Invasion wears its budget on its sleeve. Director Shinji Aramaki did not have the benefit of a blank cheque to breathe life into the script, compelling the creative team to do the very best job possible with meagre resources. The most underwhelming aspect of Invasion is the animation. While the CGI excels in terms of ships, landscapes and armour, facial detailing is underdone, and a lot of human movement looks robotic and unnatural, not to mention that the characters at no point look to be imbued with souls. Additional problems arise with the dialogue, as lip synchronisation is spotty at best. This is more than likely because it was intended to be in multiple languages, but it's distracting nevertheless. Invasion more or less feels like a feature-length video game cut scene, as it also lacks the energy to sustain proper momentum. Furthermore, the music is very chintzy, solidifying the production's "video game cut scene" sensibility, and the movie feels more like a generic space game (think Halo) than an intelligent sci-fi like Verhoeven's masterpiece.
Fans of 1997's Starship Troopers will enjoy seeing Johnny Rico, Carl Jenkins and Carmen Ibanez make a return, though the novelty is somewhat ruined since they each have different voices and faces. The absence of Neil Patrick Harris is somewhat understandable, but are Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards really that busy these days? Van Dien's absence is especially baffling since he has an executive producer credit. Outside the returning protagonists, Invasion is populated with a host of halfway interesting but largely forgettable soldiers, albeit with nifty nicknames such as "Ratzass" and "Ice Blonde." Most interesting is the character of "Trig," who's given a backstory revealing that she uses a homemade .50 calibre rifle that kills bugs with a single shot. But for the most part, the characters are lost in the thick of the action due to the pedestrian script that suffers from bland dialogue and poor characterisation.
On a brighter note, Invasion stays true to its lineage; it's as blood-soaked and gory as any of the previous movies, with the animation graphically depicting plenty of insect goo, severed limbs, and blood and guts. There's also a bit of CGI female nudity for anyone who enjoys that sort of thing (I'm perfectly happy with live-action T&A, thanks). To the credit of the filmmakers, the shoot-'em-up scenes are often exciting and make for enjoyable viewing, though things do get repetitive; we can only see clusters of men shooting at bugs so many times before scenes begin bleeding together.
It's crucial to watch Invasion with tempered expectations, knowing full well what to expect: a fun but ultimately insignificant straight-to-video sequel that in no way feels like a theatrical film. With more money and better resources, the resultant movie could have been epic, but what we have here is decent, at least. It's probably too late at this stage to ask for a true sequel, but at least we'll always have the 1997 original, which delivers more than just pure action.
5.8/10
