In a futuristic world, Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) and Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards) and a select few college kids decide to become citizens in order to try to destroy a colony of bugs that are located on a planet far away.
Anyone who is familiar with Paul Verhoeven will pretty much get what they expect here - there is lots of gore, a high body count, lots of gun fire and a bit of satire thrown in. All these elements are great and work well to make the film lots of fun and highly enjoyable. Before I continue on with the praise, I feel I need to draw your attention to some weaker aspects of the film....
The start of the film was pretty cheesy; I wouldn't go as far as saying it was bad or boring, but it did feel a little pretentious and icky. As mentioned once the film gets going it is lots of fun, but the cut scenes between Richards and her commanding officer (sorry can't remember his name) were particularly dull and seemed to have only really been included to set up a crappy 'love interest' sub plot which was not only uninteresting and unwarranted, but also never went anywhere rendering a lot of their scenes pointless. Whilst I'm focusing on negatives, I think that the kindest way to describe Denise Richards acting would be to call it 'limited' - although she is easy on the eye which almost makes her poor acting forgivable.
Back to the praise, if a mobile infantry spending 90 minutes battling a bunch of giant creatures sounds like your cup of tea then you'll certainly enjoy this film. Once the first 30 minutes are out of the way then there is never really a dull moment. Aside from Denise Richards, the acting performances are generally good with Clancy Brown being a notable highlight. This being a Verhoeven film will ultimately mean that it won't be for everyone and those that are squeamish are advised to approach this with caution. This is far from Verhoeven's best work (Robocop and Total Recall are both definitely superior to this film), but as mentioned it's enjoyable cheesy fun.
Anyone who is familiar with Paul Verhoeven will pretty much get what they expect here - there is lots of gore, a high body count, lots of gun fire and a bit of satire thrown in. All these elements are great and work well to make the film lots of fun and highly enjoyable. Before I continue on with the praise, I feel I need to draw your attention to some weaker aspects of the film....
The start of the film was pretty cheesy; I wouldn't go as far as saying it was bad or boring, but it did feel a little pretentious and icky. As mentioned once the film gets going it is lots of fun, but the cut scenes between Richards and her commanding officer (sorry can't remember his name) were particularly dull and seemed to have only really been included to set up a crappy 'love interest' sub plot which was not only uninteresting and unwarranted, but also never went anywhere rendering a lot of their scenes pointless. Whilst I'm focusing on negatives, I think that the kindest way to describe Denise Richards acting would be to call it 'limited' - although she is easy on the eye which almost makes her poor acting forgivable.
Back to the praise, if a mobile infantry spending 90 minutes battling a bunch of giant creatures sounds like your cup of tea then you'll certainly enjoy this film. Once the first 30 minutes are out of the way then there is never really a dull moment. Aside from Denise Richards, the acting performances are generally good with Clancy Brown being a notable highlight. This being a Verhoeven film will ultimately mean that it won't be for everyone and those that are squeamish are advised to approach this with caution. This is far from Verhoeven's best work (Robocop and Total Recall are both definitely superior to this film), but as mentioned it's enjoyable cheesy fun.