Rating: 
Summary: You don't get the movie? You don't understand satire.
Review: The critics initially struck down the movie. Verhoeven was even called a pro fascist by some morons because of the movie. Luckily some people caught on to the satire and it has since become more appreciated among movie buffs. Check out how much the movie resembles old war propaganda films. This was intentional. Root for the bugs? Of course, you're not necessarily supposed to like the main characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Rubbish
Review: Didn't even try to resemble some of the philisophical themes in the book. The movie is rubbish with bad acting and bad script and bad cast and bad everything. Just plain bad. Don't watch it or waste your money.
Rating:
Summary: Raunchy and Gross
Review: Definitely not for the squeamish and not too much in common with the book. I don't really like Caspar Van Diem. He looks too pretty to be playing a soldier and seems more suited for a Soap Opera. Denise Richard gets her start here, but she did not seem right for the role either. It seemed like very poor casting all around, even if Doogie Howser is in the movie. None of the characters had any on-screen chemistry. And the whole look to the movie is a bad cross between Dune and Beverly Hills 90210. Yuck. The only real character I liked was the female commander. Even worse than the bad sci-fi/high school crossover theme in the film was all the goriness. It was simply just gross. I know the bugs are meant to be horrible man-killing beasts, but we could have done without the extra goop. Skip this movie.
Rating:
Summary: a film that you can enjoy even more the second time around
Review: A film by Paul Verhoeven "Starship Troopers" is a look a very different future. Democracy has failed and the world is united under a fascist regime. This film is not about the differences between democracy and fascism (though there is mention of this), but rather this needs to be mentioned because this is the underpinning of what sort of society we are dealing with and how it has shaped the characters. We open with a brief propaganda video (which we will see different versions of throughout the movie). The purpose is to instill national pride in the citizens. From here, we move into a high school setting where we meet our characters for the first time. Johnny Rico (Casper Van Diem), Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards) and Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris) are about to graduate from high school and they are deciding what to do with their lives. For various reasons, they all decide to enlist in the military (service guarantees citizenship, according to the propaganda video). Johnny and Dizzy are infantry, Carmen is to be a pilot, and Carl goes to military intelligence. For the first time in years, the four are separated. Carl disappears from the movie at this point, but we do follow the other three. The big war the military is fighting is that against the bugs from Klendathu. These are nameless, faceless insects (though large and extremely dangerous). Though Johnny and Dizzy are being trained to fight against human opponents, we know that war will come against the bugs. And it does. While "Starship Troopers" looks like a B-Grade sci-fi movie, it is much more enjoyable than that with a bit more depth. Even though this is more background than anything else, we get to see how a fascist society might have developed into and what sort of citizens it might have turned out. "Starship Troopers" is also a straight up sci-fi flick with humans in a war against bugs. The movie is a lot of fun, fast paced, and while I didn't care for it much the first time I saw, it has really grown on me. I don't know how well Verhoeven skewers fascist regimes with satire (as what the stated intent of the film), but this film can be intelligent as well as just an action packed ride. -Joe Sherry
Rating: 
Summary: A must-have movie for sci-fi fans
Review: The few connections to Heinlein's book were well done (the political idea that citizenship should be earned, not doled out based on where you happen to be born; the lack of body image taboos...). I've read all but a couple of Heinlein's oldest works, and where the movie exerted some effort it did a fair job of representing his views. But the movie doesn't really connect to the book very much, does it? What this movie is, is a Die Hard-esque romp through space with lots and lots of action, some overacting worthy of Shatner and Takei, and heroism like you'd see in a comic book. Fun, lot's of fun. My only quibble is with the choice of what scenes to delete. The DVD's deleted scenes included two Carmen scenes (one with Rico, another with the pretty-boy pilot) that added some depth to her character, and would have changed the audience's reaction when she got in trouble later.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Classic
Review: There's been enough written about the surpassingly excellent technical aspects of the film as to render further comments redundant. S.T. is a terrific film, engrossing from first to last. The film veers far away from its source, and I do wonder how many among its audience have actually read the Heinlein novel upon which it is based. The film gives short shrift to the premise of the book, which was doubtless necessary to take the film in the direction Verhoeven wished to go. The book's provocative basic point is that the rights to take full part in society (voting, etc.) can and should only belong to those have put their lives on the line in service to their country; a citizen serves, a civilian does not. A civilian has all rights to make as much money as they like, but as one who has paid no price for freedom, they cannot possibly appreciate it, and therefore cannot become a citizen and take part in engineering the various aspects of their society. Had Verhoeven emphasized this, it would have been a very different film, and probably a less popular one, if intellectually more challenging. As it is, Verhoeven's imposing of WWII style recruitment propaganda is an effective framing device, though the recruits' reasons for joining are superficial, amounting to parental rebellion, joining to get the girl or going to Harvard. All of which misrepresent the book's tenets. Yet, when a film is this great, why argue about this or that. This is one for the ages.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Marvellous
Review: At front value this is a Sci-Fi film with a high violence and special effect quota. "Starship Troopers" encompasses blends of "Full Metal Jacket", "Platoon" and "Robocop", and while the story in itself is nothing very new (young graduates join the army in a futuristic fascist governmetn and get involved in a useless war at the far end of the galaxy) it carries some very dark undertones. Apart from hardly ignorable hints at Nazi Germany (The secret service uniforms are almost identical save a swastica, not to mention the fixation on militarist and racist issues), the film shows the effect of propaganda in war campaigns when battling far-away countries. This film was made long before 9/11, however, it gives rise to very worrying thoughts as to our problems in this day and age.
As Mr. Bush held his speaches on 9/11 and then went on to start a war on an enemy that cannot be defeated in combat, aided by a wide-spread propaganda campaign on almost all tv-channels, I couldn't help thinking of "Starship Troopers", where the alien bugs answer the human colonisation attempt in their space by wiping out the colony and shooting an asteroid at earth, eradicating Buenos Aires. Human soldiers are sent to literally the other end of the galaxy, at immense cost of lives and resources, to a hostile desert planet, effectively to die for nothing.... ring any bells? This film carries a subversive message about american culture as it stands today.
Anyone who likes war movies, sci fi flicks or would like to see the downside of american culture taken to the extreme, buy this DvD!
Rating:
Summary: classic science fiction
Review: On the surface this is a splatter flick that uses a lot of high tech toys, incredibly special effects, cheesy acting, and a lot of gratuitous gore to entertain, and it works on that level. But if you are familiar with the book and really watch the movie, you see the other elements that are almost creepy since they fairly well hidden. This movie was done in the dark comedy style of Paul Verhoeven's earlier works like Robocop or Total Recall. A dark future where things don't always make sense and violence is commonplace. This movie was done in a bit of a brighter fashion than the other two movies. Leaving behind the industrial setting for bright sunny ones, most of the early film is set in Brazil. The acting is cheesy, but gives it a b movie feel, any movie with Casper Van Dien, Jake Busey, and Denise Richards will feel that way by default. The contrasting military schools were hilarious. The insanely brutal boot camp with Clancy Brown as the brutal Career Sgt Zim, it also shows how underrated he is as an actor. This is a camp where they literally break the soldiers down and rebuild them into tough killing machines. Then you see flight school where it is portrayed as a wonderful and magical experience. Everyone is having fun and superior officers treat their students in a kind and respectful nature. The fight sequences were amazing. The special effects looked special, the bugs looked almost real. The gore was over the top, and you get the feeling of the struggle and terror that they are going through. That is just what is on the surface and what is obvious. One of the things that isn't as obvious is how dark this future world really is, and how often Nazi like references are made. The teacher at the beginning of the movie refers to how the "social leaders of yesterday nearly engineered the downfall of humanity with the failure of democracy, before our leaders imposed the order we have today", paraphrased. Basically saying they were in a military dictatorship. The flag for the federation was the Nazi flag short only a swastika. The usage of propaganda was a classic Nazi technique, one that is practiced today. Remember Iraq's minister of information (?), who gave gleaming reports of how well the Iraq army was doing while the area was being carpet-bombed and most of their soldiers were dropping their guns and surrendering. The view of what the court system was like in the future. They had a blip about how a convicted murder was caught, sentenced, and scheduled for execution in one day, available to watch. The speech that the first sky marshal gives prior to the failed attack on Klendathu, "Human life, not insect must reign supreme in this galaxy,"
The kids were allowed to handle and aim military assault rifles. Then started fighting over them while the marines laughed, and were given bullets as parting gifts. As well as the scenes of the schools "helping" the war effort by stomping on cockroaches. All in all this is a good adaptation of the book, very off key, but keeping a lot of the primary ideas of the book in. It doesn't really matter that they didn't have the battle suits, since the book wasn't about technical aspects of the future. It was a glimpse of a future society run by a military dictatorship, only a citizen can vote and only service guarantees citizenship. Heinlein was known for making his books with his own style of offbeat humor, which is seen throughout the movie, injected with Verhoeven dark humor and off the wall action. I read and liked the book, and thought that the movie was a good adaptation, making the book word for word probably would have made a movie that flopped, as it was very wordy. Plus the best part of this movie is, that all the major flaws were intentional. The main being the acting, which just about any director will know you don't pick Casper Van Dien or Denise Richards for their acting talents. Add Neil Patrick Harris, and you know it has to be at least partially intentional. This definitely isn't a movie for everybody. If you are an action fan, science fiction fan, or a fan of dark comedy, then this movie is for you. If you don't like gore, war movies, or violence, then avoid this at all cost, as that is practically the heart of the film. It partially shows unflinchingly how violent and disturbing war can be, but also for plain and simple gratuitous violence.. It has more splatter style violence than any movie released that year. Also don't take the movie seriously, that would be a big mistake, as it is a dark comedy as well as an action film. But if you like this sort of movie, you will love it. Five stars for the wonderful mixing of ideas and fun b movie nature of the film.
Rating:
Summary: Impossible to enjoy
Review: I would say the most important element in any film is good characters that the viewer can identify with. But all the humans in this film are members of Nazi society who are brainwashed into killing aliens. We can't relate to these people, or care about them - it's hard to even like them; so enjoying the movie is a struggle. To make things worse, the main characters are hammy, and given a feeble plot (I suspect deliberately so, to emphasise the satire). What this boils down to is a retrospectively amusing 90 minute satirical statement about Nazis and propaganda. But I found it impossible to enjoy as a film because of the lack of the key elements that any good film must have. The only people I can imagine liking this are people who enjoy CGI and don't care about characters (the very same people who like Star Wars Episode I).
Rating:
Summary: Classic Book - Bad Movie
Review: If you hoping for a film that lives up to the quality of the Heinlein novel you'll be greatly disappointed as I was. The entire subtext of the utopian military society of the future is forgone in favor of a high-gloss sci-fi shoot-em-up. If you're looking for a slick sci-fi action film you might like this one and rate it a 3 Stars. I was hoping for a little more.
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