Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, is the third entry to the Starship Troopers franchise started by Paul Verhoeven in 1997. The first was great, action-packed and an entertaining movie on all levels. I have only seen parts of the unrelated sequel, and what I saw was bad and I'm pretty sure a lot of people think the same thing. Here comes Starship Troopers 3, and I have to say...it's actually good. This isn't a great movie by any means, but it's a good sequel considering it's a DTV title.

Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) is back kicking some butt in Starship Troopers 3, and battling a new wave of bugs. Along the way, there's a new variety of characters, a good enough story and some decent action scenes to keep you entertained. From the get go, the movie definitely goes look like a low-budget film, but compared to some of the crap I've seen, it's a good one and actually the first good film I've seen from new company "Sony Stage 6", who have dished out some crappy movies recently. The acting in the movie is good, with a few cheesy performances here and there, and the characters are entertaining enough. Van Dien, of course, steals the show. The CGI in the movie isn't as good as the CGI in the first, but it's still good CGI. It could have been a lot worse, and the bugs looked realistic enough. I found it amusing they threw in a mini-homage to the first film as well, by giving us a gratuitous nude scene in the movie.

Now, onto the not-so-good points. The action, whilst it was good, could have been better and there could have been a few more. The battle scenes in this movie are not on par with the first film. They could have been more violent, gorier and more drawn out. A lot of soldiers would just be grabbed by one of the creatures and killed off-screen, or thrown up in the air. Don't get me wrong, some of the deaths were violent and had quite a lot of blood spray, but we needed more like in the first movie. The end battle could have been drawn out more as well, as it was pretty short. Now, what I think needed most improvement was the story. It would have been nice to make a few references to some absent characters from the first, and to find out what happened to them - such as Rico's girl, Carmen (Denise Richards). I also thought the whole religious theme started to get a little over-the-top by the end of the movie, and the whole religious bugs and talking bugs was a little...stupid.

Overall, Starship Troopers 3 isn't as great as the first, but for a low-budget DVD sequel, it's pretty good. It's got some good acting, good enough action, good enough CGI and a good enough story. You could do a lot worse, couldn't you? However, I do have to say that the movie will probably be a love it or hate it between fans of the first film. Fans expecting a big-budgeted film like the first, with a Hollywood cast and lots of violence and gore, will be disappointed. Fans of the first who can accept this film won't be a big-budgeted action flick and will have cheesy moments, a lack of budget and not the best of everything, might just enjoy it. I wouldn't mind seeing as fourth, just be sure to bring Dien back again!