From the very start this film looks really cheap. Wobbly sets, plastic guns & bad CGI. Check out the gun turrets in the 1st big action scene - I think they actually used cardboard tubes! Also, the acting is predictably wooden & there are a lot of 'filler' scenes where people stand around doing very little & exchanging bad dialogue.

For an action movie, it's quite slow paced & the 'Marauders' only show up briefly at the end. Shame, because they're just about the best use of CGI in the whole film. However, ST3 does have it's moments. The Sky Marshal is a good character even though it's obvious that he works for the Bugs from the second he walks on screen. Plus, thingy from Star Trek Enterprise does a decent job as our Heroine leading a group of imbeciles through the desert. It was great to have the Brain Bug back & there's some lovely gore & head popping too. Also, the needless nudity we've come to expect from Starship Troopers is present as usual.

What really messed it up for me was the religious angle that crept in halfway through. it's pointless & somewhat offensive. The Marauders get portrayed as Angels & start basting Bugs with their Cross shaped guns while our heroines pray for salvation. Gimme a break. Finally, the special effects of the planet exploding are just about the worst I've ever seen.

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.