Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)

i must have seen a different film!!

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

... I Had To Look No joke - I purchased my "Starship Troopers II" DVD in 2006 (used, $1, eBay) and have only just found the patience to watch it. Oh, I knew it sucked. Artless, low budget in-name only sequel to the Paul Verhoeven B-Movie anti-blockbuster. Itself an in-name only film treatment of the Robert Heinlen novel, which remains un-filmable due to its subtle complexities. And I'm not just talking about the powered armor or right wing agenda. The book was written with objectives in mind which are at odds with 21st century pop culture sensibilities. Verhoeven's film will have to do.He refused to lower himself to reprise his movie just for money but some of the high-caliber talent behind it reunited for an inevitable franchise that has been correctly shipped direct to the DVD pressing plant, never illuminating one cinema screen. Crap like this belongs on DVD, no offense to genius Phil Tippett, who not only broke ground with his bug creations for the first film but pretty much wrote how outlandish creatures are currently portrayed onscreen with "Jurassic Park". And no offense to Ed Neumeier, who not only scripted the original film but had pushed the hyper violent cyberpunk epic previously with "Robocop". They are pros and knew what they were doing when putting this very forgettable film together. I trust they were well paid for their time.The cast is blameless. Only one player returned from the Verhoeven film, specifically steel-eyed Brenda Strong (ship's Captain Deladier) who is brought back as a cigar-chewing female Sergeant, and while it's not a problem I don't get why. Ed Lauter lends temporary credibility to the first few minutes as a besieged MI general cut off from any hope of rescue with a small squad of troopers whom he promptly sends off into the jaws of a plot device. Its name is Dax, he is played by actor Richard Burgi, and is the best thing about the film, which threatens to come to life a couple times when he is onscreen. The second best thing is the steampunk catapult Suitcase Nuke defense system for a lost outpost only he knows how to operate, and its deployment at about the 25 minute mark is the film's climax. It's all downhill from there, including just knowing that a certain character is going to switch off a certain device at a certain moment and guarantee certain doom for anything else of an original nature happening at all.It's not just that it's a smaller, meaner film. Small films can still be ambitious + convincing, and I like it mean sometimes. It's not just that the core plot component is derivative. The original is about the most derivative film ever made (except maybe "Robowar", LOL) but used its appropriation with bombastic unapologetic glee. Here they just check off the cliches like numbers on a list: The lost unit cut off from rescue, the creepy abandoned base with a power shortage, the gaggle of offbeat personalities making up the speaking roles (the Black Guy, the Crazy Guy, the Techno Nerd, the Green Rookie Scared Witless), the ass-kicking females who are suddenly hot when stripped to a muscle shirt with their hair down, the quirky shifty-eyed loser with the secret, the nympho who was game enough to do a nude scene, the resentful anti-hero pressed into action by circumstance ... Et cetera. The way the film is photographed is an immediate tipoff: Almost everything is murky, cloudy, smoky, dimly lit. All hallmarks of low budget science fiction filmmakers who are trying to obscure the low budget components of their low budget sets. The main abandoned base location is also helpfully half demolished, meaning that the set designers only needed to drag in heaps of junk to obscure a few functioning prop pieces like doors and make the lights flicker. Computer generated effects fill in the gaps including the bulk of the monster design and none of it boasts the improbable believability of the first film's visceral impact. The violence, gore, and sex are unearned checklist items to be covered without the fun factor which made the first movie such a guilty pleasure masterwork. This one is just guilty, mostly with snitching its premise from the early "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Conspiracy". Which got the job done in 48 minutes for a fraction of the cost & is still a genuine freakout the first time through.But whatever. After twelve years of not knowing I had to look and got what I deserved. No hard feelings either -- I was fortunate to see the first film in a near riotous screening at an 8th Avenue theater in NYC the week it was released; Complete strangers high-fived each other on the way out. Nothing could ever live up to that experience and I think the filmmakers were aware of it, kept their sights aimed low. Put a mean little film together, made some money, and moved on to other projects. Worth a rental or $1 used DVD, you'll get what you pay for. Beer may help.

It must really suck to be one of the people writing all the bad reviews, complaints about every detail of any given movie. I suppose that if being a movie critic is your job, then you must truly believe your trifling is of some benefit to someone, somewhere in the universe. I don't believe it is, but that is just my opinion.Starship Troopers 2 never made any claims to being a great movie with millions invested in special effects, original music, or location filming around the globe. This movie is about entertainment, and it provides that in spades. When I watch a movie, my only reason for doing so is that I want to be entertained. At the end of the movie, if I can say that I was entertained, then the movie did what it was intended to do. At the end of ST2, I felt very well entertained so, to me, the movie was great.I have always valued the decisions we are permitted to make in life, like being able to turn off or switch channels on the TV, or to be able to leave the theatre if I don't like the show. With ST2 I felt no desire to turn it off. The actors were good, the story interesting and the visuals were good. The film is a lot of fun because it is interesting. Obviously, the movie does not stack up well against much more heavily financed films, but for a $7,000,000 budget it did very, very well.To the critics, yes, special effects, original music scores, and an all- star cast may have made it a better visual experience. Then again, maybe not. Even some very big budget films are total failures. Why? Quite simply, they fail to entertain and become tedious and boring. You cannot honestly say that ST2 became tedious or boring. It was very entertaining all the way through. What more can you ask of a movie?If you like the genre and want to feel entertained, then this movie is for you. If you only are able to enjoy the movies that are critically acclaimed, then either find the critics that rate entertainment for what it is supposed to be, entertaining, or just move on.

The suits have basically taken the action adventure franchise and made a small horror movie out of it. The movie is inferior in every way. The CG is actually inferior after 7 years. The real effects are also inferior due to the smaller budget. The cast is also smaller. The first one had a budget around $100M but this one is listed at $7M. That accounts for most of the difference.The odd thing is that they got Brenda Strong to come back. Of course she died in the first one, but in this one, she's the Sergent leading the group. The cast is limited to around 15. Most of them are B-list or lower actors. This feels like a straight-to-video, oh wait it is.It's a big disappointment that they didn't attempt a big production big scale action sequel to the original. It's rare for Hollywood to not do sequels. Who knows what happened.The other big problem is that the lighting is all very dark. It was probably easier to cover up all the deficiencies. As a horror movie, it helped to have the darkness. But when the action gets going, the darkness obscures too much.As for the story, after an action start, it really grinds to a halt. The actors grumble their lines. They transition to a more horror oriented story. It takes a long while to make that transition. Once it transitioned, it became too chaotic to get a handle on who's who in the movie.

You know what despite some 'shoddy' parts I think it was good. I mean it was a low budget film and to be honest I enjoyed it. I mean what are you expecting for $7,000,000 avengers had $220,000,000 to play with. With that budget this is not going to attract the worlds best actors and animators nor have the best effects but it was good. Satirical scenes in it too yet I think some actors shone though. And they found ways of making 'the bugs' a far better threat to human kind thus maybe more menacing. Overall you have to take this as a B movie and for a B movie it's damn good so what if the effects look like they were on cheaper software at least they didn't reuse footage the whole time.