TotalTelly.co.uk

Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV

Starship Troopers 2 - Hero Of The Federation [2003]


RRP: £9.99
Our Price: £3.00 (subject to change)

ignore the negatives
Review date: 2008-11-24 Rating: 8 out of 10


firstly ignore all the negative reviews on amazon of this movie. They dont have a clue. Sure this one isnt as big in scale as 1 but instead it plays like the alamo with the theme of who do we trust like carpenters "The thing". Planted in this low budget gem are lots of good gore and old school flesh tearing sequences ala yuzna gordon and knb. with enough original bug massacre moments to remind us of the energy of the original. These humbugs (sorry) who are down on this flick are really missing out.it took a second viewing for me to warm to it so maybe thats the answer to why so many hate it. It simply is a different more compact episode in the bug saga. Played out in a solitary outpost where the grunts struggle to survive till help arrives. Meanwhile a new type of bug (of course) has infiltrated the federation. If you want a real no hoper turkey of an episode i highly recommend no. 3 want to know more????

Similar Products

Reviews


GOOD AS A STANDALONE FILM, VERY DIFFERENT TO THE OTHER MOVIES...
Review date: 2008-10-11 Rating: 6 out of 10

Despite it's obvious flaws and visibly modest budget, there is still a reasonably ok movie here. The FX are average particularly the Bug attacks
and what's with the flashing blue light on the guns to depict the muzzle fire??!! The firepower was very impressive in the first movie, but here looks more like Blakes 7!
However after the initial dissapointment, the film moves into Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers/The Thing territory as a new Bug enemy has developed the ability to possess the troopers holed up in a military installation on a remote planet. It's a good locale, with an effective sense of paranoia and claustrophobia akin to Romero's Day Of The Dead (1985).
It's a literally darker, grimmer film than the glossy parts 1 & 3, and is more character driven.
It really does pick up pace about halfway through, and as a standalone film,that doesn't really connect with parts 1 and 3, it is fairly entertaining.

Don't be fooled!
Review date: 2008-08-27 Rating: 2 out of 10

This film is awful. If you ignore the appalling cgi and the even worse blue screening like previous reviews have suggested, your still left with the unoriginal, obvious and boring body snatchers-esk storyline.

It might say starship troopers 2 on the box, but this is no sequel. Its more a c-rate horror than anything. The film has nothing to do with the original apart from being set in the same universe.




Thoroughly decent stuff!!
Review date: 2008-08-21 Rating: 8 out of 10

Ah, this ain't half bad you know!?

Sure, it's waaay scaled down from the original. Nowhere near as clever or socially horrifying and is extremely derivative, but...I rather enjoyed it...

This time out, our blindly faithful team of Troopers are holed up in an outpost awaiting rescue from a massive bug attack when something strikes from within...

The external fight scenes are pretty good and the effects are fine apart from the toothless guns, but it's let down a bit with the closer CGI that comes in the 2nd half of the film.

It's pretty obvious the budget is tiny (£7M compared to £100M for No.1), but everyone does their best and the story they've opted to (had to) tell doesn't require vast soundstages or planetscapes...

Overall, good fun... And you get Ed Lauter from Digital Man!! What else do you want??

Roll on No.3

Giant Bug B-Movie...Just Like Harryhausen Used to Make
Review date: 2008-05-07 Rating: 8 out of 10

OK. I admit it. Maybe I like cheap trashy movies (and having worked my way through just about every 1970s s/exploitation and grindhouse horror/thriller, that may well be the case), but I loved this movie. I had read all the rubbish reviews online, on amazon and imdb.com, yet still I bought it. Why? Because I was convinced it still had something to offer a diehard fan of the original movie, like me. The complaints I saw most frequently seemed to centre on how low-budget it looked. Well, funny that, eh.

Let's face it, if this film wasnt called Starship Troopers 2 and was titled Space Bug or something equally B-movie-esque, it would be happily accepted as exactly what it is: a cheap, visually inventive sci-fi schlock fest in the mould of Inseminoid or something similar. I can only imagine that people who give this film lousy reviews either a) expected far too much for a straight-to-video sequel to an admittedly kick-ass original, or b) arent big fans of cheesy splatter horror.

Kudos to Tippett for keeping the arch-fascist subtexts... the final montage of death and glory propaganda (juxtaposed with the most incompetent recruiting officer imagineable in the last scene), and the Mobile Infantry opening, are strangely uplifting in a worrying kind of way. That's probably Neumeier's point: how easy it is for propaganda to seduce people (as easy as it is for a pretty young blonde thing to seduce any male in her path).

Good rousing orchestral soundtrack, and a good use of CGI. The bugs look as good as they did in the movie. Other reviewers have complained about the tight framing and relentless close-ups, which actually aren't any different to what we're used to seeing on TV shows. Don't you get it, people? It doesn't look big, epic and cinematic because it wasn't made for the cinema! (Who slags off a TV cop show because it doesn't look like Dirty Harry?) Instead, it feels claustrophobic, creepy, perfectly in keeping with its setting. Tippett has stretched whatever minimal budget he had to produce something that is far better than the majority of reviews would suggest. Sure, there's nothing really that hugely artistic going on, the sets are dark, gritty and retro-industrial in style, but the execution isnt overshadowed by its ambition. Tippett realised his budgeting constraints and set out to make something that didnt try (and fail) to replicate the widescreen epic sweep of the original, and instead went for the human drama aspect, played out against darkly claustrophobic sets. The handheld/steadycam shots actually work within the context of the battle scenes. Black Hawk Down it aint, but it works on its own terms. If this is Tippett's first shot as a feature director, then I've seen far worse debuts.

Decent script by Ed Neumier, some good humour; not always brilliantly acted, although Capt. Dax, the General, and the cigar-chomping female Sargeant make up for their ham colleagues (plus, the chick who plays the Sargeant is one red hot momma - wasn't she also the Captain in the original movie?) Good gore for those who like that kind of thing, not too much to put off people who are upset by rubbery prosthetics and strawberry syrup (though those who are would have a real hard time watching the original movie, I'd guess.) Nice psychological subtexts as well. The new bug is quite interesting, though the sexual overtones have been over-emphasized by some reviewers (and there's more actual nudity in the first movie, by the way).

Good selection of extras on the DVD as well with featurettes, stills, etc. Watching the featurettes give you the impression that this was a labour of love for Tippett, who has dedicated his life to movie animation (and has been a big influence on my own visual work as well). Everyone involved in it seems to have loved the experience of working on the movie, which was shot in less than a month.

Yeah, I'll watch this again, because I really enjoyed it. It certainly did a damn sight more for me than the pitiful Hostel 2.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Richard Burgi
Colleen Porch
Bill Brown

Creators:
Richard Burgi (Primary Contributor)
Colleen Porch (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Uca
Manufacturer: Uca
EAN: 5050582523553
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2007-08-27
Audience rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 88 minutes

Add to Cart

© 2006 Darren Hester, DesignsByDarren.com, Some Rights Reserved.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional