Starship troopers: Las brigadas del espacio

El Biffo

What i learned from this film is the next time ants invade my kitchen, to use weapons of mass destruction.

Z

Genocide as a party. Fear, vilification and quite finally extermination are the subjects of this film and yet it’s so fucking funny. The bland, toothpaste model kids are all perfectly cast. Verhoeven pokes and prods at the warmongering mentality with hilarious, astute amusement. You have to watch it about 20 times until you fall in love with it. It represents the apotheosis of intelligent, loaded, berserk pop cinema.

msmichel

'Do you want to see more?' Verhoeven's clever satire of totalitarianism and propaganda is well contained within the framework of adapting Robert A. Heinlein's classic sci-fi grunt novel. From its plastic fantastic casting to its fetishism of costume and perfect body types this black satire pulls no punches. Characters are simply intentionally planned cardboard cutouts save Dina Meyer who scores here.

Richmond Hill

With cartoonish impact akin to Lichtenstein pop art & Barbie-like plastic sexuality this is foreign policy as pantomime - which would be hilarious were it not ruinous in reality. Similar in technique to the earlier Robocop (media inserts etc.) this takes broader swipes at the hand that feeds it, although not satire all the way with some second-half longueurs between parodic outbursts. Plastic fantastic however. Pow!

T. J. Harman

A brilliant satire of fascist agit prop dressed up as summer sci fi popcorn flick (in a style crying Milius = Eisenstein = Riefenstahl) played so straight, there's no comfortable distance for some viewers due to a lack of prestige to the main cast or obvious "wink''s. One of Verhoeven's best US films, this could be an effective propaganda in the right presentation, which is the highest compliment a satire can get.

Tigrão

It starts out as an idealistic society depicted like a Leni Riefenstahl movie, then it goes into an absurd war against absurd enemies. The amount of violence, the character's indifference to their comrades' deaths, the "roughneck" humor derivated from all the clichés of Nam, and of course the film, constantly interrupted by TV spots. This is extremely clever.

Duncan Gray

I'm amazed that so many in 1997 missed how clearly this is a satire. By the halfway mark, its skewered war movies, sci-fi, high school melodrama, and action heroes—and it makes a sly proposition that if our cultural avatars are bland, cheerfully fascistic action figures whose most defining characteristics are bloodlust and sex appeal, maybe we deserve to be eaten by giant space bugs after all. 4 out of 5 stars.

Mark Garrett

A beautifully stupid and epic film. Sprinkled throughout are elements of trashiness (the shower scene, the menu-like narrator, the end titles) but they all support a singular, epic vision of the Earth in the future, one that is critical and doubtful, sad and jacked-up. It's a masterpiece though, a many-edged sword, and tragically endless.