Robo-shlock: the bad '80s teen movie goes sci-fi
Starship Troopers
Directed by Paul Verhoevan
Now screening in major cinemas.
By Conrad Barrett
It's the future and sexism and racism have been eliminated; there's world peace and everyone has an American accent; it's utopia with a futuristic metallic finish.
But a federation that is fascist in character governs this society. Hundreds of young people join the armed forces because "service guarantees citizenship". Capital and corporal punishment, stifling state propaganda and militarism are ingrained, and everyone's happy! The scapegoating and prejudices used to create divisions have been diverted to focus squarely on a different species.
This is the world projected by the film Starship Troopers. Paul Verhoevan's latest offering is a right-wingers fantasy tale based on the book by Robert Heinlein. (Heinlein found it difficult to get his book published as publishers thought it portrayed fascism as an integral part of an ideal world.)
It follows the life of a young man so in love that he ignores his liberal parents' concerns and follows his girlfriend into the armed forces. He ends up slumming it in the infantry while she makes it into the elite pilots' division. The story proceeds as he strives to earn his citizenship, his dignity and his girlfriend in the cruel world of combat.
The staple themes of the '80s teen movie genre are resurrected and woven into gory fight scenes with big, ugly insectoid aliens attacking earth with meteors that they discharge from their abdomens. (I suspect the spin-off children's play figurines were already being produced before the shooting started.)
The story concludes with no resolution in sight. This may be Verhoevan employing a Brechtian-style ambiguity or a hint that the sequel is already halfway through production.
It doesn't take long to work out that this story is the product of a severely twisted mind. The director claims the film is exposing the story's crudeness. "I couldn't possibly portray that kind of fascist society straight", he explained. But if that is so, it isn't clear enough.
The film is punctuated by a series of mock infomercials produced by "The Federation" (much like in Robocop), which parody the Cold War propaganda of the US in the '50s, as well Nazi propaganda.
The only other piss-taking happens through the ham acting, the paper-thin characters and a script with lines straight out of a comic book. The intended humour is evident, but not entirely successful. If Verhoevan really wanted to make a statement he would have played on the contradictions thrown up by this kind of society. As it turns out, the comic interludes become fewer and less poignant toward the end and the film begins to take itself a little too seriously.
There is almost no attempt to pass comment through the narrative. I suspect Verhoevan's real concern was not with creating cutting insult to a famed piece of right-wing literature, but rather to make a film that would perform at the box office and resurrect his reputation after the disastrous Showgirls.
In the '80s, in a time of relative economic stability, Verhoevan's vision of the future was one of social decay as he depicted in Robocop and Total Recall (both written from a left perspective). But when neo-liberal austerity worldwide is making more and more people feel capitalism's pinch, his future world is one where all are happy and compliant in a right-wing "utopia". Though intended in jest, this film leaves more than a few viewers disturbed by its apparent message.