In this opus from writer/director John Waters, Stephen Dorff (Blade, The Gate) plays the title character, a cult movie director who gathers a flock of teen drug addicts and whores to join him in a literal war against mainstream film making. Their efforts attract media attention when they kidnap a Hollywood star (Melanie Griffith) and force her to be in their underground flick. I can certainly appreciate the desire to obliterate an industry that markets drivel to the masses, but I’d have preferred a little more meat on these bones. Griffith’s character in particular is hard to get a handle on, her transformation from bitchy diva to Demented acolyte fitting too conveniently into the needs of the plotting. And I’d like for Waters to have pushed Dorff further over the edge as well. Everyone is a neat stereotype and things are played strictly for laughs. But, hey – that’s the Waters way.
Director Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct) continues his knack for combining violence, gore, dark humor and social commentary in this loose adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s serialized novel about humankind’s future war against a race of insect-like aliens. I can almost enjoy the movie for the action alone. It escalates beautifully, with plenty of exciting sequences and spectacular visual effects. But it’s the satirical edge that helps distinguish Starship Troopers. The whole movie is designed as a recruitment film for a fascist society. When our ‘heroes’ win in the end, the movie has its tongue firmly in cheek, dressing them as full-blown Nazis while Leni Riefenstahl-like propaganda leads us into the closing credits.
