Starship Troopers: Invasion

At first glance it's perhaps a bit weird that the Starship Troopers film franchise, which after the 1997 original had seen two direct-to-dvd entries in 2004 and 2008, would get a CGI anime sequel produced in Japan. But judging by the fact a 6 part OVA already aired before Paul Verhoeven even got to Heinlein's book, Japan has always enjoyed the universe to a certain degree, or at least producers see a potential market.

Because of this obvious drastic change in production, Invasion feels quite different from it's precursors. But is it any good?

The truth is that Starship Troopers: Invasion is just a well-animated and straightforward ... action story. It starts guns blazing and ends the same way, with a whole lot of dead bugs and troopers in the middle. There's no serious politics or satire to be found here, the plot unfolds pretty straightforwardly, and the action is consistently good though not amazing. The CGI is impressive, close to flawless whenever it concerns the combat, and without the skill on display here the movie would likely have been a lot harder to watch.

Most of the cast is solid, given just enough character to make the viewer care a little bit about their death or survival, and the overly macho atmosphere is the closest Invasion comes to the live-action movies outside of the bugs' design. The one weak spot is Henry 'Hero' Varro, who is set up to be the hero of the story but ultimately plays second fiddle to the live-action's main trio and the newly introduced troopers.

What also works in the favor of Invasion is it's simple but effective story structure. The action is never far off, the characters never get too much focus to the point it's boring, and the second half is mainly one giant unfolding battle. If anything it lasts a little too long with not enough turns to go through near the end, but since there's plenty of violence shown it's not too much of a bother.


Ultimately Starship Troopers: Invasion is neither terrible or particularly good. It has nothing to say but entertains decently, it's forgettable but not so much that it feels like a wasted watch, and kept a franchise alive that most everyone probably considered dead. For someone who likes some brainless military entertainment it's worth the time for the CGI alone, for everyone else probably not.

Starship Troopers: Invasion is a 2012 Sola Digital Arts film. Obviously it's based on the same book that the famous '97 film was based off of. Let's see how they handled it. I've not seen anything by Sola so I couldn't even make a prediction in that regard.

Story:

We open with a group of soldiers boarding a station that's been overrun by the bugs on a rescue mission. They have to find a second batch of soldiers that's trapped on board. They succeed only to have the larger, more powerful ship they brought with them get commandeered by a high ranking official. Shortly after ... they get orders to find that ship as its gone silent.
The film is a bit sloppy. There are multiple situations where characters have information that they have no way of knowing seemingly because they found the DVD and watched the part they missed. There's also a character who dies for seemingly no reason. One moment he's on his feet dealing with some bugs, then he gets checked on and he's just dead with no sign of any injury. What, did he just then realise the situation was kind of dangerous and have a heart attack?

The pacing is really well done. It has its intense moments and gives itself ample time to wind down so that you can process everything. The film also does a pretty good job of creating investment with the mystery of what exactly the official was up to and the knowledge that named, major characters can be killed at any time. I also do think there are some really good ideas in this film with the main antagonist and the specific scenario the characters find themselves dealing with. They just don't get developed all that well.

Characters:

The characters are definitely a problem. Invasion uses that common Hollywood action trope where they introduce a huge cast of characters and don't even try to make most of them interesting since they're basically there as fodder for the antagonists and the issue that always comes up in works with this trope is that they'll try to have some emotional death scenes but you can't really give a shit as a part of the audience because the character in question was about as complex and compelling as a cardboard cut-out. Some of the major characters do have small hints that they could be more than archetypes but the film never does anything with those traits that could add some complexity.

Art:

The CG isn't bad. The sci-fi elements look pretty interesting and I appreciate the fact that some of the soldiers have flair that sets their armour apart from the nearly identical armour of their companions. Sure, it gives the armour more personality than the character wearing it but the idea is good. The film also does a solid job of having action that's a bit chaotic, especially when things are going to hell, but not overly so. You can still easily discern everything that's happening.

Sound:

The acting is passable. While they got some truly talented actors like Hirano Aya and Kuroda Takaya, they have the serious disadvantage of characters who have next to nothing to them. Takahashi Tetsuya's compositions are pretty solid.

Ho-yay:

What little romance we see is hetero-normative.

Areas of Improvement:

1. The film really would have been better off with fewer characters and more time spent developing them. Maybe it wouldn't have allowed for as many death scenes but we would have gotten higher quality death scenes.

2. The script needed an editor who would actually pay attention and ask basic questions like "why does this happen? or "how does this character know this?"

3. While I really like the idea behind the main antagonist, they really needed to spend more time showcasing them and their abilities.

Final Thoughts:

Starship Troopers: Invasion is okay, not good but okay. I think the factor that ultimately holds it back is that Sola was content to make a dumb action film with under-developed characters and sloppy writing but some cool ideas and solid action sequences. I'm giving it a 6/10. Maybe if you just want some action and don't care much about the writing you'll enjoy it. If you want a really strong story and characters you can relate to, it's not going to be the thing to watch.