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Adventure, Action, Thriller, Science Fiction 129 min R
Rotten Tomatoes72%Metacritic52IMDb
A new kind of enemy. A new kind of war.
Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico's military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as "the Bugs."
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Epic, plot-driven, ironic and richly built.
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Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Taste Buds's numbers.
You know, were this film maybe twenty minutes shorter then it would be quite a decent sci-fi action film. Sure, the cast is made up of pretty/handsome lightweight acting talent led by Casper Van Dien ("Rico”) but they do all gel quite well, providing us with quite a reasonable escapist effort. "Rico" is determined to enrol into the military to gain much sought after citizenship and to fight against the marauding Klendathan bugs. The story marries loads of typical gung-ho boot camp scenarios with some well photographed action scenes as our hero and his team of kick-ass buddies take on the gazillions of bugs intent on sucking out brains, tearing folks limb from limb and, generally, being a bit nasty! The dialogue is terrible, but that doesn't matter - this is a shameless piece of entertainment aimed squarely at folks who want to switch off their brain and watch a shoot-em up with loads of pyrotechnics, special effects and a bit of harmless eye candy. There are a couple of cameos from "Doogie Howser" himself (Neil Patrick Harris) - as a mind reading fellow clad in a rather SS-style uniform; Clancy Brown and Michael Ironside provide the physical (if not exactly cerebral) muscle and eag
Read the whole review on TMDBGood watch, will watch again, and can recommend, possible for a Bad Movie Night. I'll start by saying the movie definitely isn't good, it's infamous for being a bad movie that people still love. Granted it was 1997, but the cg effects were horrendous. The practicals actually weren't so bad, but there are very few shots to actually appreciate them. Again, 1997, this movie is weirdly dated with its perception of what the future would have been. For those that weren't familiar, this is most decidedly spurred by the popularity of Starcraft in the late 1990's, and that there weren't too many horde movies out there, at least not ones that weren't zombies. Clearly inspired by Starcraft's Zerg and Warhammer 40K's Tyranids, a bug by any other name. The world is amazingly crafted, and we only see the tip of the iceberg. There could have been an entire "Star Trek" style series set in that universe. For the parts written all the acting is sufficient, the cannon fodder acts at the level of characters that would be thrown away, the stars are clearly the stars, and there is some hierarchy in between. I honestly don't know how much better they could have casted this, but I imagine if the character
Read the whole review on TMDB##No time for regrets in the fury of battle Again and again there are undertones in this movie that show us that the situation is not as simple as the leaders of the world portrayed in the film might want their underlings to believe. A reporter asks the question whether the humans were the ones who started the war and whether the Arachnids are simply acting in self-defense. A talk show guest finds the idea that there could be intelligent Arachnids preposterous, showing how much the propaganda has done to degrade the enemy. In a great scene we see the eye of one of the arachnids for the first time and for a second I was wondering what was going on inside the creature. Of course, this brief moment of reflection is quickly erased by a gun shot and the continuation of the fury of war. But this, to me, seems to add to the overall anti-war message: The soldiers can only stay obedient servants if they are not given moments to reflect and question the system. And so when the viewer see the propaganda clip at the very end of the movie proclaiming triumphantly and bombastically "They'll fight and they'll win", they might have already forgotten that just a moment ago they saw a sentient being
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80 profiled raters. Loved most by The Provocateurs; disliked most by The Prestige Hunters.
If you loved this film, the television, the book, the music, the game.
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