"Actor: Eric Bruskotter"

• Starship Troopers | DVD | (11/06/2001) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.94%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A gloriously over-the-top treat, Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers takes the militaristic moralising of Robert Heinlein's pulp classic and sets about undermining it mercilessly. Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) desperately wants to join the Mobile Infantry and kill some Earth-threatening alien bugs. He also desperately wants Carmen (Denise Richards), but only gets to fulfil one ambition in the second of Verhoeven's futuristic satires (also cowritten with his RoboCop scriptwriter Ed Neumeier). Set in a fascistic future where kids must do military service to qualify as citizens, own property or even have babies, the film's dark Vietnam and Nazi-era parallels are all the more disturbing given its deceptively sunny Beverly Hills 90210 teenage cast (though scenery-chewing veteran Michael Ironside steals the movie as tough-talking Lt Rasczak). The CGI arachnids are among the most convincing and dangerous-looking creatures ever seen on screen, and with the movie clocking up the highest number of blanks ever fired on a film set, it's also pretty loud! Verhoeven went on to be Executive Producer of the Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles animated TV series a couple of years later. On the DVD: Starship Troopers in this DVD incarnation can now be played continuously on one side of the disc (the original Region 2 release version was that crime against the DVD format, a "flipper"). You'll also feel really spoiled by the extras here: five deleted scenes (approximately six minutes) pad out Carmen's love triangle problems. There are impressive screen tests for Denise Richards and Casper Van Dien (three-and-a-half minutes). An eight-minute featurette zips by with key interviews and fact flinging. And a real treat is three scene developments with layers of FX work explained by Verhoeven. But what makes this DVD essential is the director's enthusiastic commentary alongside screenwriter Ed Neumeier: dissing astrology, making a stand for feminist issues, saying how he went nude to placate the actors for their shower scene, and drooling with praise for his FX team, Verhoeven makes a fascinating statement that "war makes fascists of us all". After a studio disclaimer, and beginning with his reaction to the film's critique in Time Magazine, this is no-holds-barred fun. --Paul Tonks

• Can't Buy Me Love | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £15.86   |  Saving you £-0.87 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Nowhere-man Ronny Miller is secretly in love with Cindy Mancini the foxiest most popular girl on campus. When Cindy finds herself in a desperate predicament Ronny steps in to save the day...for a price! Cindy must pose as his girlfriend so that her popularity might rub off on him. What results is a hilarious yet touching series of complications as Ronny and Cindy discover that teenage love and friendship can still survive despite the hassles of peer pressure.

• Starship Troopers 25th Anniversary | Blu Ray | (01/11/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Starship Troopers / Starship Troopers 2 | DVD | (10/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Starship Troopers: The new millenium brings man face-to-face with the deadliest enemy of all... an intelligent race of alien bugs some thirty feet tall some that fly and all capable of destroying every living thing on Earth! That's where brave young freedom fighter Johnny Rico comes in. While Johnny trains in an elite infantry unit his stunning girlfriend Carmen becomes a top starship pilot - but is seduced by a suave flight instructor! Join their mission to the aliens' home planet where an all out inter-planetary war is about to begin... with mankind on the line. Epic filmmaking and jarring action sequences that put you in the middle of it all make 'Starship Troopers' the definitive space-age story in this or any other universe. Starship Troopers 2 - Hero Of The Federation: The bugs are back! A small group of troopers find themselves taking refuge in an abandoned outpost as they attempt to fight the encroaching Arachnids - not realizing that a much graver danger is actually infiltrating their unit....