Neumeier sharply returns for ‘Starship Troopers 3: Marauder’ (2008)

Before there was such a thing as A-level B-movies – starting in 1977 with “Star Wars” – all sci-fi actioners were B-movies. “Starship Troopers” (1997) was another of those “Star Wars”-ian A-levels, with outstanding bug action and crisp space effects to accompany the Verhoeven-Neumeier satire of enthusiastic, brainless militarization.

However, B-movies didn’t actually die, they merely dropped in respect. Because the 1997 movie was not popular enough to spend as much on a sequel, yet not so unpopular that the franchise ended, “Starship Troopers” moved into old-fashioned B-movie territory.

So you really have to change your mindset in order to appreciate the next chronological entry, the straight-to-video “Starship Troopers 3: Marauder” (2008), written by Neumeier, who takes his only bite at the directorial apple. It’s difficult at first.

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From high tech to cardboard

The opening sequence takes place on a small set of dressed-up “futuristic” cargo containers (perhaps made of cardboard) that provide corridors for troopers to walk through. An electric fence keeps out the bugs on this backwater planet. When it goes down and the bugs swarm, it’s impossible to forget we’re missing the top-shelf effects from the first movie. We get a quick shot of a sharp bug leg walking around with a pierced severed head stuck to it, and it’s barely worth a shrug.

The uniquely “Starship Trooper”-ian vibe of gore-ific action combined with the wrongness of this future’s twisted collectivist morality remains, but it’s flattened because we’re asked to do the work of transporting ourselves there. Since I (like most viewers, and as is intended by Neumeier) don’t support the Federation’s policies of endless war and the brutal quashing of individual thought, it’s like I’m being asked to be complicit in order to appreciate the movie.

Because I admire Neumeier from “RoboCop” and the first “ST,” I was willing to take the journey, and while I feel a little gross, there’s enough good stuff here to make it worthwhile. For one thing, he peppers the spending evenly, closing with the reveal of the Marauder suits (“Iron Man’s” suit, only more so) from Heinlein’s novel – a sort of apology to fans who waited this long to see them on the screen.

For another, the tone remains in place. “Marauder” marks the only instance where this can be said: The return of Casper Van Dien (not present in 2004’s “Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation”) elevates the material. His acting – so wooden that it could build the planet of Vincent Ward’s unmade “Alien III” – is perfectly suited to the “Troopers”-verse. (He splits lead duty with “Star Trek: Enterprise’s” Jolene Blalock, who is also stiff, or perhaps she stifles her range on purpose.)

Johnny Rico has enough sense of what’s right to stand up to his superior General Dix (Boris Kodjoe, so unengaged I almost expect he’s a hologram) when Dix deals with local farmers’ anti-war opinions by charging them with disloyalty – which means execution. The brickbat Dix then makes the same charge against Rico – give him points for consistency – and Rico is next on the busy hangman’s platform.

Spirituality or mental illness?

In addition to the easy-to-root-for hero at its center, “Marauder” perks our ears with its state-religion relationship, a ripe subject dodged even by Verhoeven’s film. Our 21^st century Western reality has so many taken-for-granted elements that a movie can become provocative by tweaking our assumptions a little.

Yes, Federation life is somewhat like Communist Eastern countries wherein the state replaced religion via coercion, but Neumeier probes a deeper: In the “ST” future, people genuinely aren’t spiritual, as if humans’ mind-body-spirit doesn’t possess that level anymore.

The film’s leading military figure, Sky Marshal Anoke (Stephen Hogan), is also a pop-music star; for all the movie’s bugs, Anoke’s earworm “Good Day to Die” might be the most insidious.

When Anoke admits to believing in God, the Federation must adjust for that, and by the end, one of those “Would You Like to Know More” news segments announces that the Federation has proven the existence of God (and He’s on our side and He wants us to win). In the meantime, we get good banter that goes against type of what’s likely in viewers’ reality, with spiritual belief being treated as a mental illness.

With a budget too low to create grandeur to enhance the absurdism, Neumeier (who wrote the saga’s second and fifth entries, as well) does yeoman’s work. But super-fans of the original film, and of Heinlein’s marauder suits, might like to know more. “Starship Troopers 3: Marauder” earns a salute from me, if not a medal of honor.