Idk about Starship Troopers (1997)

You had me at “Paul Verhoeven space opera.”

I saw this movie in the THEATER! As a child! And what I remembered was a.) Denise Richards obvi, and b.) the dude getting his brain sucked out by the big maggot. Rewatching it some [redacted] years later, I actually thought it was great fun, and that the monster cg looks pretty good for 1997 (tho dont ask me about the ships, Kay). There was a delightful amount of specificity in this world—and maybe I’m just Marvel-brained, but I‘ll give points to anything with, like, a screenplay. Does the satire get swept up in the boobs and bugs? Sure! But isn’t that the promise of any Paul Verhoeven film?? And what a wild addition to his oeuvre: an R-rated, Saturday morning cartoon riff on All Quiet on the Western Front—where its hero, by surviving, suffers an arguably bleaker fate, fighting his (often literally) faceless enemy till the end of time. And there’s a fight scene on a spaceship to Mazzy Star song so.

Pros:

• gender-inclusive future sports

Cons:

• NPH sorryyy

Next time! We raise the red lantern with the inimitable Gong Li!