Casper Van Dien must have been offered plenty of loot to reprise his role as John Rico from Starship Troopers. He's now in the officer ranks and still a role model for the infantry troopers fighting the arachnid invasion.

Starship Trooper 3: Marauder finds things have changed in the Federation and on the arachnid side. The original one ended with the capture of a giant brain bug as it became obvious those bugs definitely were using some kind of military strategy. But it's only the tip of the iceberg so to say.

Rico is in a nice jackpot as he's blamed for a huge battle loss and scheduled to be hung. But he has friends in high places and they need him for a rescue mission of a sky admiral.

There's also a growing peace movement that gets kind of violent as peace movements sometimes can.

As for the rest all I can say is the bugs are learning quite a bit about what makes humankind tick.

Van Dien is still as heroic as ever as John Rico, perhaps a bit wiser with age. None of the others who played characters who survived reappear in this. Might have made for greater continuity if they had.

Unlike the first sequel the second paid a bit more attention to the society that formed because of the bug invasion and some of the inevitable flaws in a militarist based society. It's also got a lot of good action.

Nowhere a patch on the original but far better than number 2.

The war with the bugs continues with new deadlier bugs and better weapons to fight them. United Citizen Federation faces internal opposition to the war and religious revival. Colonel John Rico (Casper Van Dien) is fighting on planet Roku San. They are joined by popular entertainer Sky Marshal Omar Anoke and Captain Lola Beck (Jolene Blalock). Rico gets into a fight with General Dix Hauser (Boris Kodjoe) which is interrupted by a bug attack. The base gets overrun. The survivors escape and Rico is blamed for the lost. Beck is shot down with Anoke but Admiral Enolo Phid (Amanda Donohoe) is hiding the lost of the popular Anoke. Hauser goes off to rescue the stranded crew after saving Rico from his execution.

Casper Van Dien returns to play Rico. The franchise has also return to the full out war movie. The CGI is inferior to the first movie but it does try to return to the war action. The story gets a bit too convoluted with the inclusion of religion. It would also be better to keep the cast together on their adventure. This is better than the second movie but it is simply a shadow of the original.

Usually 'hinsight' created sequels aren't as good as the original and this (part III) is no exception. In fact i sat it out, but was increasingly annoyed by the lack of creativity and intellect. The last half hour is more like a crusade for religion (happens more and more in Hollywood it seems) than a serious attempt to make a good sci fi shoot'em up style movie. So the story is lame, the acting is doable, effects are OK, but nothing new or exciting.

In the beginning old friends meet again, but these are all new actors (apart from Rico) and this is quite confusing. Obviously the makers found that a problem too, since the emphasis is overdone. The war turns into showbiz and commerce, which is too realistic maybe (?!) and a battle is lost at some secret planet somewhere (its top secret so we aren't supposed to know either) The brass flees from the planet and ends on some other secret planet due to a flat tire, after which Rico has to go get them. And thats good for Rico, since he joined up in a hanging party, which have become in vogue. To 'spice' it up a bit, we get some boob shots and then Rico saves the day. Alls well that ends well, so they overkill a new bug-brain by destroying the whole planet its on. Or at least i hope so, or there will be another sequel. (To stay in sync with the movie) God forbid!

You can miss it.