Starship Troopers is genius, and it's taken me this long to realize

Like many I had vague memories of some silly, cheesy and incredibly violent sci fi film from my teens. Overall my impression was of yet another dumb 90's action movie- servicable entertainment if you're in the mood, but utterly forgettable in general. I was so, so wrong.​After a rewatch as an adult, it amazes me that I ever missed that in essence it's a satire. One done so well that you can miss it. The genius is in Verhoeven's commitment to this idea: He didn't make a movie that satirizes fascism and the military, he satirized fascism and the military by making a film that embraces them wholesale, and then letting you see how shit that film would be.The entire movie is the answer to the question: what kind of propaganda film would a fascist intergalactic government engaged in a war of aggression make? It's got all the tropes: Johnny's arc shows a shallow young man who grows up, realizes that girls and friends are pointless and that violence and the military will give him everything he ever wants. There is an old mentor who ostensibly teaches him how to think for himself (concluding fascism). There are genuinely well thought out (if horrifying) arguments for how fascism justifies itself ("Voting is political, and politics is violence"- what a line!). If you just follow the tone of the film, it's all so uplifting- Johnny's a hero, and he found meaning in his life!!!The horror is all contextual. Little bits of unsettling world-building -like the classroom history lesson, hearing people talk about baby licenses, a person arrested tried and executed in the course of a day, Gestapo inspired uniforms- all slap you in the face with a clearly sick society, but it never feels like it. It's presented as almost utopian.The casting really helps emphasise the fantastical, this-is-too-clean-and-polished-to-be-real sense that permeates the film. They're all absurdly attractive, shiny kids that are utterly unbelievable, because they're not characters: they're actors playing characters. If I wanted to sell a bunch of dumb impressionable space-fascists on military service I'd probably use Denise Richards as well. The same goes for their acting- they're terrible. But their awful acting adds so much to the film that I doubt it's unintentional. It adds to the sense that the whole film is lying to you. If you doubt me, just watch Diz's death scene with Rico- they're both so melodramatic and over the top, it's like when my dog plays dead by first flailing wildly.Other than all this it is clearly a movie that is having a lot of fun, so the pure entertainment factor is huge. If you thought it was a shit action movie, give it another try. It's an awesome political satire, done with such skill that I (and from what I can tell, many others) didn't even realize. via /r/movies https://ift.tt/2MxRffo