It's likely that Robert Heinlein's RPM is probably sufficiently high that his grave could alleviate the energy crisis the world is currently in... and doubtless, if he were able to see the latest sorry chapter in the film franchise that bears little resemblance to his seminal/controversial novel penned a half century ago - it's entirely probable the energy output would be similar to that of the Sun.

The film based Starship Troopers has sought to portray the regime of the Terran Federation as utterly fascist - ruthlessly executing dissenters, opposing religion and having practically no regard for either its civilians or those that serve. These have been considerably expanded upon in the 2nd two films. The 2nd - and utterly dire film, which presumably exists to make this one look better by comparison - one showed us the Mobile Infantry as merely "meat for the grinder"... which given the laughable tactics and horribly ineffective weapons they're given, seems fitting - and about a million miles away from the exceptionally well equipped, well trained and exceptionally effective MI that Heinlein conceived of - and effectively created/popularised the idea of power armour and even predicted the direction of military tactics in the real world.

The third film is somewhat more political than the previous incarnations... whereas their message of a fascist state with no real regard for human life was merely something that was mere mentioned in passing, here we have something going out of the way to make the point. Several scenes have character condemning those that don't "do their" part and the propaganda/news clips are where one can see the likes of Fox News being in about 10-15 years time in their unremittingly right wing agenda, with little apparent regard for whatever facts might happen to be in the way. It's so over the top that it actually passes through the overblown satire - which the first film did so well - and passes into eye rolling and indifference.

The film starts with the defence of some farm planet - the war is still ongoing... and the Bugs have bred some new species to help in their efforts to exterminate humanity. Apparently this is the "frontline" in the war... it's not made clear how, exactly. Apparently we have to take their word on it. Johnny Rico - clearly the actor fell on hard times - is hanging out there to defend it. One of his former comrades comes along - now a general - is there and so is the Sky Marshal... he's the head honcho, if you'd forgotten.

Johnny and his old pal go to the bar for a few drinks with T'Pol. There are a couple of hick farmers there who are bemoaning the fact the Federation are there, saving them from being bug chow - also, for some reason everyone is now referring to the bug as "Archie". Why is never explained... "BUUUUUGS!" seemed to work better... is it some kind of reference to the fact the Americans called the Viet-Cong "Charlie"? We may never know. As you'd expect with hick farmers shooting their mouths off in a bar, things end up with a brawl...

Long story short, something goes wrong - the colony is over-run. Johnny is blamed but avoids a court martial to go off on a super secret mission that means he'll only really come back in the last 5 minutes... He's going to work on the film's namesake MARAUDER!

The Skymarshal heads up to his ship in orbit, they somehow get hit while at warp and have to abandon ship. Naturally, we follow T'Pol and the Skymarshal as they crash onto a big ol' generic desert planet - it does have a sea but all we really see is the desert. There's no time for a rendition of "we do like to be beside the seaside" because the twitchy chef - whose chances of survival are about the same as him winning the lottery - sees a bug.

For some reason, despite the fact they're supposedly all members of the military, discipline and the chain of command instantly breaks down. The cook is jittery, the Sky Marshal's aide turns out to be a religious nut (which is illegal, remember)... the big dumb strong guy isn't taking orders, neither is the doctor... and the Sky Marshal is out to lunch... Looks like it's T'Pol's job to hold it together.

She decides to move away from the escape pod - the merits of this plan are debatable. You're in a big ol' desert... here you've got a defensible position, you'd be passing that up to... what, wander around on a barren enemy infested planet? Kind of makes you think they should have taken some marines with them instead of the flotsam and jetsam with the most important man in the Federation.

Or is he? Johnny's friend Dix finds that a distress message from the Sky Marshal was classified. Although, he shouldn't be surprised as he saw the admiral that did it impersonate him to deliver a speech... anyway, turns out she has thought that the Sky Marshal has been compromised by the brain bug they captured and now believes the "brain of brains" to be God... so yes, he's gone batshit crazy.

As you can guess, things don't go so well in the desert. The doctor confesses the Sky Marshal has gone off the deep end - as if you need a medical opinion, when the guy starts spouting about God all of a sudden and how he had a jolly nice chat with him. Shortly after this, the doc falls down a hole... then the twitchy chef meets his end... The CGI of the bugs here is absolutely DIRE, it's at times worse than the CGI cartoon... if they weren't spending the budget on the script or actors or effects... what WERE they spending it on?

The Sky Marshal reveals to his remaining compatriots that God is the bug "brain of brains" and that he's going to make peace with it... by which he obviously means, spill his guts about the disposition of human forces and lead to their total destruction... so in other words, a bad thing. Which is all related to us by the uber-brain itself... sigh. Fortunately the agony is almost over. Johnny Rico turns up in some mechs that he stole from Command & Conquer and amazingly they're actually effective against the bugs - there's a first time for everything... they save T'Pol and her bible bashing friend - both of them praying like they mean it, in possibly the most idiotic religious conversion scene ever.

They blow up the uberbrain by destroying the planet... religion is adopted because the Admiral observes that it's a good way to instil mindless obedience - pretty cynical, eh?

It's fair to say, it's not as awful as the previous instalment - their guns actually shoot something more threatening than blinking lights and the characters aren't walking personifications of every war film cliché ever... however, at least that film was actually a cohesive effort... a fucking awful one that probably could induce brain damage but it was a film that knew where it was going.

Starship Troopers 3 wants to do a whole bunch of things... but it doesn't really succeed in any of them. The religion angle is laughable - T'Pol converts to religion because the bible basher tells her to pray... uhuh. Given her utter contempt for religion before that, it seems fairly stupid. Especially as she's saved by Johnny Rico in his C&C brand mechs.

It seems conceivable that these "Marauders" are a doth of the cap to the original concept of the Mobile Infantry using power armour but really, it seems a bit late in the day to be worrying about the vision of Heinlein... because he'd likely be so outraged by the senseless idiocy of the first film, he'd have no inclination to see the others unless it was for a massive law suit... And in any case, these are more mini-mechs than true powered armour and their "strategy" is essentially "stand in a line and shoot the hell out of everything"... so, it's not as if mobility is a huge factor... they might as well have sent in moving pill boxes.

And of course, there's the Fox...uh, Federation News Network... espousing the death of "peace terrorists"... it really does go past satire to just trying so hard to hammer home a point that it's insulting. Yes - they're fascists who hate free speech and demonise people who exercise free thought an execute any who question the war or the Federation.

All in all - a car crash that should be avoided at all costs... there's nothing here for anyone. Not the sci-fi fan, not the action fan... not even fans of the original film. Even intoxicated, this makes for difficult viewing.