Starship Troopers 2 - Hero of the Federation (2004)

Allowing for all the low-budget shortcomings that plague any straight-to-video production, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation serves up 92 minutes of passable sci-fi action. Parlaying his veteran status as an animator, special-effects wizard, and stalwart survivor of the CGI revolution, Phil Tippett (with returning screenwriter Ed Neumeier) makes a woefully uninspired directorial debut with this makeshift sequel to Paul Verhoeven's 1997 blockbuster, retaining the jarhead militarism of Robert Heinlein's original novel while serving up more bugs, an all-new cast of attractive young stars, and all-too-familiar plot elements borrowed from a dozen better movies. "Bigger is better" is out of the question under such meager budgetary circumstances, so Tippett and Neumeier compensate with gruesome bugfights and gross-out effects at regular intervals, some standard-issue nudity, and escalating paranoia (echoing Carpenter's The Thing) when a new breed of bugs use human hosts (à la The Hidden) to overtake a stranded platoon of Federation soldiers on a bug-infested planet. Relying on murky confinement to hide nondescript sets, Troopers 2 has three engaging leads in its favor: TV regular Richard Burgi is solidly cast as the titular hero (he's the military equivalent of Pitch Black's Riddick); Colleen Porch is engaging as the most sensible Federation survivor; and screen veteran Ed Lauter makes the most of his salty role as a battle-hardened general. Unfortunately, they're adrift in a knock-off sequel (shot on high-def digital video) that could never do justice to its energetic predecessor. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

 The Fact...
...that their helmets are Photoshopped onto their heads on the box art should be more than enough of a portent of what is to come. February 26, 2008

 Short and Sweet
Let's keep it short...the entire product of the film (Sound, Direction, Acting, Casting, Editing) all felt like it was done by a high school film student with some of his buddys. Save your money and more importantly, save the fraction of your life of watching this movie for time watching a good movie. Because you will never get the time back that you wasted watching this movie. February 11, 2008

 Better Than Expected
After hearing rumors and critic reports about Starship Troopers-2, it took a long time for me to buy the movie for my collection. What I heard was incorrect. Starship Troopers-2 is a good Sc-fi, and a good addition to the original movie. The acting was good, the story was good, and the quality was that of the first show. I srongly suggest that if you have the first movie, you buy this one too.

Thomas January 7, 2008

 A Fiasco
A BIG disappointment. This ultra-low budget, direct-to-video sequel to Paul Verhoeven's classic sci-fi action satire is inferior in just about every way possible. A lousy script (surprising, because it was penned by Ed Neumaier, the same guy who penned the original, as well as co-authored yet another razor-sharp Verhoeven classic, "Robocop"), terrible effects and cinematography and sluggish direction sink this one from the get-go. Most of the proceedings (especially the action scenes) are filmed in near-total darkness (probably to mask the cheapjack special effects), making it a real headache to watch. Not even some gratuitous nudity from the luscious Kelly Carlson ("Nip/Tuck") makes this worth the effort. Stick with the first one and don't waste your time here. October 14, 2007

 Lets talk rip-offs.

Scenes: clips taken both in its entirety and other scenes that were just superimposed onto new backgrounds.
Special effects: Guns require no reloading, (apparently because of advanced technology), and have no moving parts and no recoil. This compounded with a unoriginal story line, poor acting and reused sound effects attributes to a rip-off of my time.
And another thing, isn't the main theme of this movie a rip-off of the 'Iron Chef' theme on the food channel?...I think it is...
September 7, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...