Review of Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation

As the filmmakers themselves said, if the original was a WWII satire, then this is a haunted house movie. Faced with a limited budget, the aim here was to create a claustrophobic horror movie. It still has the human vs. bug battle scenes, and it introduces a new bug to add to the chaos. It's a fact that in low budget movies, it's an easy trick to use actors as villains instead of monsters. So this movie has an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" element to it. The movie plays it very straight, and doesn't have much of the "gung-ho" feel of the original. But that's a good thing. They didn't try to REPEAT the original movie. They came up with a fresh idea, and ran with it. The result is a taut, exciting, and sometimes scary ride. Director, and fx legend Phil Tippett keeps things tight and confined. He creates a very isolated feel to the movie that always has you looking beyond the characters in the foreground to see what or who might be coming up behind them. Most of the actors are very good, and the ones that aren't die quickly. LOL. A strange piece of casting is Brenda Strong who played the starship captain in the original. She's playing a different character here, but the filmmakers (in their commentary track) never really explain why they cast her. If they did, I missed it. Richard Burgi is excellent as the battle weary Captain Dax. The character was originally supposed to be Sgt. Zim from the first movie, but actor Clancy Brown was unavailable. But Burgi is great here. He's the solid center to the other characters, most of whom are coming apart for one reason or another. Fans of the show Nip/Tuck (the men anyway) will be overjoyed to see the insanely beautiful Kelly Carlson here. Her character plays the sexed-up Pvt. Soda, and she appears completely in the nude not once but TWICE!!! Proof that God hates blind people. LOL. The limited budget doesn't show in the special effects. While far more limited from the original, they play well here. The Arachnids are still menacing, and the new bugs are great for giving you the creepy crawlies. And not to disappoint the gore fans, the blood flows freely here. Never let it be said that they don't come up with new ways to rip the human form to shreds. So if you like the original, or a good haunted house flick, or just want to see Kelly Carlson with NO CLOTHES ON...this is the one for you.