Starship Troopers: Invasion (2012)

Directed by: Shinji Aramaki | 89 minutes | animation, action, science fiction | Actors: Leraldo Anzaldua, Luci Christian, Melissa Davis, Justin Doran, Andrew Love, David Matranga, Emily Neves, David Wald

After the mediocre live-action sequels to the very entertaining and satirically strong ‘Starship Troopers’ from 1997 (by our own Paul Verhoeven), the expectations of an animated, direct-to-video sequel are not exactly high. However, knowing that the director is Shinji Aramaki, who was previously responsible for the spectacular ‘Appleseed: Ex Machina’, might give you a little hope. However, while the Japanese filmmaker certainly displays some of his flair for action scenes, ‘Starship Troopers: Invasion’ does disappoint a bit. That there is no deeper, satirical layer is not an issue, but that the attempts at humor kill, characters usually come across as implausible, and there is also little to no tension generated in many of the action scenes, is a deadly sin.

Aramaki is good with robotic spacesuits, as he has shown in the past, and in the animations these look good too. The film opens with some of the Federation’s troopers taking out, slaughtering an army of bugs and evacuating human survivors. This is where the problem starts. The soldiers are shown in their all-covering suits from the start and are introduced to the viewer without any introduction or background. So, on the one hand, the viewer has not seen a single human face and has not yet received a hint of a personality to identify with. As a result, one must look at an anonymous fight between identical, less scary-looking “bugs” and the equally identical troopers. A wild opening scene like this is supposed to get the adrenaline flowing and arouse excitement, but almost the opposite happens: boredom. It’s only when the sights are focused on sniper Trig, who shoots the insects one by one from a distance with her huge rifle – and for a reason that becomes clear later, counts the number of hits out loud – interest is first aroused and can to empathize with a character.

Although, compassion might be a strong word. Only in roughly the last half hour of the film does a process or emotion take place that could be typified with this word. It’s more like characters get a bit more of a face from this point on. Literally too, because after this first “fierce” confrontation, the helmets come off, and human interaction takes place. However, the body movements don’t look very natural and the faces also look quite plastic-like. Aramaki and his animators clearly didn’t have a huge budget to spend. It doesn’t help that the dialogues are stiff and unbelievable and the voice actors act very over-the-top.

However, it is certainly not all doom and gloom. Apart from some unintentional humor – for example due to the flat or clumsy dialogue, and a striking amount of female nudes (especially funny instead of stimulating) – the animation is at times very worthwhile. Especially the moment when the light in the spaceship taken over by insects suddenly switches on, and everything is provided with a red, green and gold color and many details become visible in the industrial pipes and machines on the ship, is breathtaking. Also a long “bullet-time” moment, where time stands still and many of those involved in a fight between insects and troopers are revolved (while recently fired bullets hang in the air with their vapor trails), is visually impressive . The film gets really exciting in the second half. From the moment the ship is examined, the tension is palpable. With many scenes in the dark and absent for a long time, and because of this all the more threatening “bugs”; obviously inspired by the ‘Alien’ movies. But also the alternating focus on different groups of fighters in different locations, action scenes that become more dynamic and varied, and emotions that become more intense, make the ending of the film quite compelling. It’s a shame this couldn’t have come a little sooner, because now the movie is over just when it gets really interesting.