Starship Troopers 3: Maurauder (USA. 2008) and The Chaser (KOREA. 2008)

Saturday Double Feature !

The Chaser (South Korea. 2008)

…is an incredibly hyped little flick famous for making the most dough at the box office EVER in its country of origin, South Korea. It was a relatively low budget production, has no stars and is from a new productions company. The story is about an ex-detective turned pimp who discovers that his hookers weren’t abandoning him at all but where instead being killed by a psycho who likes to work with hammers and nails.

I have absolutely no idea where the MASSIVE success of this film stems from. The story isn’t particular original (but it does go in an interesting direction thirty minutes in), the direction is kind of bland and the stars fit their roles well but never bowl us. The damn thing last a way overlong two hours, but that’s par for the course when it comes to films from Korea. It’s a solid little picture and nothing else. I wouldn’t slavishly recommend it or universally pan it. If you’ve seen everything else the country had to offer in the last eight years then check this one, otherwise put it on your TO-WATCH list and wait it out.

Starship Troopers 3: Marauders (USA. 2008)

Casper Van Dien is back! The festivities may begin again! After a completely lack luster D.T.V sequel to the original classic gore-fest that jettisoned any link to the first, the original screen-writer Edward Neumeir has returned for the third part as both the writer and director. My hope for a fun little ride quickly dimmed as I realized the bugs themselves look about four years behind the 1997 original and the budget was only enough to cover a gallon of blood and one decapitated head. The first half of the film presented enough original material to keep me entertained (It’s Trench Warfare!) but after that it quickly turns into an uninteresting “People lost in sparsely populated enemy territory” adventure. The Van Dien gets jettisoned from the main plot line and is forgotten until he makes an appearance in a quick ending that only delivers to the people with lowest of low expectation. There could have been two stories going on here and they picked the wrong one to follow. That’s actually a pretty big theme in the film: Present interesting ideas and do nothing with them.