Super Troopers

Last night, I took a break from readying the new house to hit the movie theater for a special event. Starship Troopers was being screened. This alone would never have caught my interest; I would say I hated the movie, but I honestly found it too dumb to muster up anything as strong as hatred. But this screening was presented by the RiffTrax team, featuring a live version of their hilarious commentary.

Starship Troopers really has all the "qualities" that made for some of the best episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It had the same ideas repeatedly endlessly in scene after scene (in this case, spaceship flybys and mass slaughter of CG bugs). It had huge gaps in the (bad) dialogue perfect for inserting fast quips. I mean sure, the acting was slightly better than terrible, and the production values were through the roof for the time period, but this was still a "Manos: The Hands of Fate"-esque affair that would surely be the worst film in any director's career, had that director not also given us Showgirls.

The RiffTrax commentary was chock full of pop culture references, scathing putdowns, and running gags. On the rare occasion a joke didn't land, you only had to wait a moment for the next one. There were more laugh out loud moments than I could possibly remember... though my personal favorite had to be the quip for Michael Ironside's "you're it, until you die or I find someone better": "Those were my wedding vows."

It's been a while since I've enjoyed a RiffTrax commentary or an MST3K episode, but last night's event has me browsing their web site and keeping an eye open for their next theater event. Good times.