Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsSome decent action but an otherwise disappointing experience.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2014
Starship Troopers: Invasion is the fourth movie in the Trooper franchise and the first to be animated just using CGI. I'm a huge fan of the first film and have been nothing but disappointed since and sadly Invasion just continues that trend.
First and formost are the strange changes they made, Carman, Rico and Carl all make appearances but none of them are anything like they should be in either appearance (Carl now has black hair...) or personalities with once again Carl having the biggest change having been made into a complete tool. The troopers armour has also been completely overhauled so they look more like mechsuits which took away quite a lot of the iconic Trooper image which also bothered me a lot, it's either based on the Roughneck TV show armour or as Invasion was made by a Japanese animation studio Stage 6 could reflect that.
The actual story is passable but the way it gets there has quite a few plot holes, bad dialogue and has quite a lot of cringeworthy moments. I mean at one point one of the Troopers takes on a bug using martial arts, it was just painful to watch. This is also the type of film where all three of the main female protagonists were naked within 30 minutes for almost no reason, ridiculous.
This isn't a deep movie either, none of the tongue and cheek satire is there, just all out action and explosions. Some of it is rather exciting to watch though with bullets, bugs, gore, spaceships and explosions all around.
Visually Invasion is a mixed bag. The mechanical side of things it's spot on, the ships, guns and suits all look great. The characters though are another matter, lip syncing is way off as it was obviously made to a Japanese dub and never reanimated for an English voice over. The whole film also has a grainy effect and the colours seem really muted for a lot of it but overall the graphics are of very good quality.
The music has some nice tracks that go with the over the top action, some of which are remixed versions from the original Starship Troopers soundtrack. The voice acting in English however is another matter, feels almost like a dubbed Bruce Lee movie from the 70's.
Overall as a one off watch Invasion was fairly mindless entertainment but it doesn't really add anything to the Starship Trooper universe and they made some bizarre choices I couldn't get over. If you can put that aside, deal with the awkward moments and want some fodder for the brain then give it a go. If not rewatch the original Starship Troopers, even after 16 years it's a brilliant film.
+ Visuals are decent.
+ Action is good.
- Trooper armour and Carl Jenkins are completely wrong.
- Lip Synching is way out.
- Sub Par voice acting.
- Cringeworty in places.
