Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is the most misunderstood science fiction film ever made — a fascist propaganda film made by an anti-fascist director who was betting that American audiences would not notice the satire. Paul Verhoeven, who grew up under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands, adapted Robert Heinlein's militaristic novel as a pitch-perfect parody of fascist aesthetics: beautiful Aryan soldiers, jingoistic news reels, a society where citizenship requires military service, and an insect enemy dehumanized into pure target practice.

Most critics missed the joke in 1997. They reviewed it as a bad action movie with wooden acting, not understanding that the wooden acting was the point — these characters are propaganda archetypes, not people. The bug battle sequences are genuinely spectacular. Neil Patrick Harris arrives in a leather trenchcoat that would make an SS officer envious. The 'Would you like to know more?' news segments predicted the post-9/11 media landscape with disturbing accuracy. Time has been extraordinarily kind to Starship Troopers. It is now recognized as one of the great political satires in cinema history.