Paul Verhoeven has cushioned himself against the common accusations flung at the Robert Heinlein boys' sci-fi adventure -—"fascism," "puerilism" — with an overall larkish air of insincerity. Correction: one area of presumable sincerity might be the continuation of his career-long quest of the physically repellent. Plenty of scope here for bright-colored bug guts, human vomit, amputated limbs, and the like. The rest, meantime, is all a big goof, so that the evocations of rah-rah 1930s Joe College films and flag-waving 1940s G.I. Joe films and apocalyptic 1950s grade-Z science-fiction films enjoy protective coats of heavy irony on top and low camp underneath. Verhoeven is a just-kidding jingoist. It would be difficult, in any event, to get very emotionally involved in the us-against-them struggles of the bronzed mannequins who pass for humans (a cast of virtual unknowns, save for Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown as leathery war vets) and the computer-animated robots who pass for alien arthropods: plastic action figures on both sides. With Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Muldoon. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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