When Starship Troopers came out back in 1997, it was relatively unique. The propaganda commercials shown during the film alone made it different, not to mention the satire and humor. Unfortunately, the sequel Starship Troopers 2 left all of that out and ended up being a generic science fiction movie. In Starship Troopers 3, they decided to try and recapture the uniqueness of the first movie. Sometimes, things just shouldn't be imitated, at least not poorly imitated.

In the continuing fight against the bugs, Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) is back to lead his troops on the front line. He is stationed in the middle of a bug-infested planet. He is joined there by some old friends, Dix Hauser (Boris Kodjoe) and Lola Beck (Jolene Blalock). Things have changed since he last saw them both though. No one is ever quite the same person that they were years before. With them is Sky Marshall Anoke (Stephen Hogan). The singing Sky Marshall is a very weird character. Just try and picture a cross between Tom Jones and Hitler, and there you have Sky Marshall Anoke.

Now, so far the movie isn't too bad. The original setup is decent and the characters are interesting. I'm not sure I'd be ready and willing to enlist in their army, whose theme song is "It's a good day to die," but it is at least humorous. There's even someone killed by a flying shovel, how much funnier can you get than that? But it doesn't last; things just start going downhill quickly. It isn't that the movie is horrible, just very predictable and boring. After the first 20 minutes or so, we had already figured out what was going to happen. Watching it all unfold exactly as we thought was just plain boring. We probably wouldn't have even finished it if it wasn't for review.

The DVD also includes some special features to try and further entertain you. They're mildly entertaining. My personal favorite is the Sky Marshall's video for "It's a Good Day to Die". He's just so horribly funny. Sadly, the bonus features don't manage to make up for the movie.

Overall, Starship Troopers 3 was a good attempt to recapture the feeling of the original, but it just fell a little short. There are several things that Heinlein (the original book's author, for those who might not know) is probably rolling over in his grave about because they are so opposite to his original concepts, but I guess that happens in Hollywood. They obviously tried to imitate the satire from the original, but satire is only good when it makes you stop and think about the message they're trying to send. In this case, it's so overdone that I'm not even sure they knew what they were trying to point out.