The "Starship Troopers" franchise keeps scrabbling on, less due to public acclaim than the immutable logic that any science-fiction movie worth doing once is worth doing three times. There's something about trilogies — from Asimov or Tolkien perhaps — that just makes nerds feel complete. Fortunately for them, "Starship Troopers" has come through to fill the awful void of fantasy/comic-book movies we've been facing this summer.
The first "Starship Troopers," based on the novel by Robert Heinlein, was directed by Paul "Basic Instinct" Verhoeven in 1997, back when Hollywood would still trust him with nine-figure budgets. A lot of those digits went down the toilet with "Starship Troopers" (and "Showgirls") though; the suits terminated Verhoeven's Hollywood career (he's back in Europe now, and making better films; see "Black Book") and downsized the series' budgets considerably. "Starship Troopers 2" was strictly "B," a "Fort Apache" movie with giant alien bugs, but not without its charms considering master animator Phil Tippett was still creating the critters.
"Starship Troopers 3: Marauder" is helmed by Ed Neumeier, who scripted the first two films and who also directs this time. His brief was to bring back the humor and satire of the first, Verhoeven-directed film, even though the tongue-in-cheek aspects were what pissed off the fanboys in the first place. That gives Neumeier an extra star from this critic, but unfortunately his idea of satire is about as clever as a hammer to the head.