It is easy to think you’re smarter than STARSHIP TROOPERS but that’s a mistake. Even though it was released in the Clinton Era, no film more accurately foretold the Dubya Era and its cycle of terrorism giving way to military adventurism like Paul Verhoeven’s adaptation of the Robert A. Heinlein novel. Verhoeven drew on his memories of growing up in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands to tell a story which he sums up as “war makes fascists of us all.” We follow a group of teenagers from their utopian high school days and watch them become hardened warriors for their totalitarian state after a devastating attack from an insectoid alien race. Mixing satire, dazzling special effects, and Verhoeven’s impressive staging of combat, STARSHIP TROOPERS blurs the line between rousing American action films and fascist propaganda in a way we now understand all too clearly. Ensuing presidencies may have shattered our vision of ourselves, but thanks to Verhoeven and his crew, we cannot say we weren’t warned. (Brandon David Wilson, American Cinematheque)