Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation

Title: Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation
Rating: 1.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Horror
Starring: Billy Brown, Richard Burgi, Kelly Carlson
Director: Phil Tippett

Just as monumental as the debut was, this is a sequel that too should go in the history books for it is no less worthy of being remembered. Never before has such a film managed to be so successful; so incredibly capable of demonstrating the value of a director in a piece of cinema, as I struggle to think of a single sequel that traverses between 'masterpiece' and 'foetid pile of shit' with such speed. There is always the usual problem of 'sequel syndrome,' very few actually living up to their originals but made anyway as a cheap cash in, but here they've really outdone themselves. The director has jumped ship, the funding has been slashed horrifically, and of the original cast we are left with precisely nobody. About the only person who didn't take one look at this project and tell them where they could shove it was the writer, presumably because he had written a good portion of the script already and wanted to get paid, but if it wasn't bad enough that the director wrecks the credibility of one film - apparently not having the faintest idea what it was about - did he have to rip off others in the process?

What you think might take precedence in this film – the war against the bugs – doesn't really, as instead we find ourselves battling a new kind of bug, one that gets into your brain and whilst your body slowly rots away. Rather than feel like an action flick, it feels like they took the basic concept of 'The Thing' and then told you the answer to who it really is less than half an hour before the concept is introduced, and they don't exactly make it difficult for you to guess earlier (could it by any chance be the random people who have been stranded on the planet for months that you found and decided to help?). And then there's that token pretty actress fitting to the first film, hired for her appearance, and boy do they use it. To rip off 'Species,' which wasn't the greatest of films to begin with, though far more entertaining than this exercise in futility, and because clearly every military jarhead has absolutely nothing against fucking everything in sight like a wild dog in heat, and only a true hero of the federation could resist the wiles of a blonde who forgot to put on any clothes.

Yes there is still technically the threat out there, threatening to get inside the base our meat finds itself shacked up inside after landing on a planet that – surprise surprise – can't be conquered with a couple of dozen men, but after taking one glance at the awful use of CGI, failed to be disguised by making everything too dark to properly make out the casts faces, I’m rather glad they decided to try to avoid as much bug special effects as possible and focus on the gore. The glorious B-Movie slasher gore, and one of the few things that wasn't awful, because this film has an incredible shortfall of things going for it; the military decisions are often moronic at best, defying basic common sense (the warriors from “300” were smarter, and that's saying something); all that socio-political commentary has gone out the window (with the exception of maybe 15 seconds at the end deifying a murderer as a hero once he died as a means to entice new recruits); at no point do you actually care for any of the characters unless its to laugh at their ridiculous names (Pvt. Soda anyone? Pvt. Brick?). I wasn't expecting it to live up to its legacy, I was just hoping for some good action sequences and it couldn't even deliver on that meagre request.