Starship Troopers 5: Traitor of Mars (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Shinji Aramaki (Starship Troopers: Invasion), Masaru Matsumoto
	Actors (voices): Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers 1&3), Dina Meyer, DeRay Davis
	Country: USA, J
	Genre: SF, Action, Animation
	Conditions of visioning: 07.01.2020, VOD, 11" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Federation trooper Johnny Rico (Van Dien) is ordered to work with a group of new recruits on a satellite station on Mars, where giant bugs have decided to target their next attack
Review: After a fourth movie in the Starship Troopers saga that I really liked (read my post on this Invasion), this one produced five years later is really disappointing. The concept is the same as in the last movie (fully animated) but this time even Casper Van Dien and Dina Meyer are back to voice their characters from the first Starship Troopers. It is amazing that 20 years after the release of Paul Verhoeven's movie, its influence can still be seen on today's directors and producers, to the point that they keep on delivering new movies with the hope of reproducing what they saw, maybe what drove them to work in Cinema in the first place... But whatever good visuals, story and production magic operated on the previous movie, this one lost it all. The characters' faces and their displacement look very bad, the backbone of the story is simple but not very attractive, but the worst of all is the character development which is awful. In particular the young soldiers and clumsy and cowards, and it doesn't make any sense that bad-ass Johnny Rico has to stand them. The Action scenes are also badly directed, with problems and solution appearing when the screenplay needs them to, as bugs getting killed more or less easily depending on the needs of the story, this kind of things. It is pretty annoying to watch. I have the feeling that the American co-production that had controlled the previous movie this time left free reign to the Japanese crew that delivered a typically Japanese product with a very awkward pace. Not recommended.
Rating: 2 /10