theatlantic:Starship Troopers: One of the Most Misunderstood Movies EverWhen Paul Verhoeven’s Starsh
theatlantic:Starship Troopers: One of the Most Misunderstood Movies EverWhen Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers hit theaters 21 years ago today, most American critics slammed it. In the New York Times, Janet Maslin panned the “crazed, lurid spectacle,” as featuring “raunchiness tailor-made for teen-age boys.” Jeff Vice, in the Deseret News, called it “a nonstop splatterfest so devoid of taste and logic that it makes even the most brainless summer blockbuster look intelligent.” Roger Ebert, who had praised the “pointed social satire” of Verhoeven’s Robocop, found the film “one-dimensional,” a trivial nothing “pitched at 11-year-old science-fiction fans.”But those critics had missed the point. Starship Troopers is satire, a ruthlessly funny and keenly self-aware sendup of right-wing militarism. The fact that it was and continues to be taken at face value speaks to the very vapidity the movie skewers.Read more. [Image: TriStar Pictures; Touchstone Pictures] -- source link