STARSHIP TROOPERS 3: MARAUDER - PREVIEW 

The war against the Bugs continues! A Federation starship crash-lands on the distant alien planet OM-1, stranding beloved leader Sky Marshal Anoke and several others, including comely but tough pilot Lola Beck. It's up to Colonel Johnny Rico, reluctant hero of the original Bug Invasion on Planet P, to lead a team of Troopers on a daring rescue mission.

WE SAY

Looks like everybody creatively involved in the underappreciated 1997 big screen version of Robert Heinlein’s novel, Starship Troopers, will get their shot at directing a straight-to-DVD sequel. The previous sequel (the 2004 Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation) was directed by the first movie’s special effects supervisor, the legendary Phil Tippet. This sequel is directed by Ed Neumeier whose script entitled Bug Hunt got retrofitted onto the controversial Heinlein novel to make the screenplay for Paul Verhoeven’s movie.

Notable this time round is the return of Casper Van Dien to the franchise, who’ll be reprising his role of a scarred Johnny Rico, and the presence of actress Jolene Blalock, better known to genre fans as Sub-Commander T'Pol in the now defunct Starship: Enterprise TV series.

As far as straight-to-DVD Alien clones went, the last sequel wasn’t that bad even though it ditched Verhoeven’s satire for straightforward action movie conventions. If you don’t expect too much of Starship Troopers 3 either then we suspect that you might have a good time in front of your TV late one night.