52
Metascore
20 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe movie is sensationally exciting, but its hey-kids-let s-put-on-a-war! story line plays like Beverly Hills, 90210 recast as a military-recruitment film for the Third Reich.
- 75ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliAlthough none of the characters are fleshed out much beyond the comic book level, we nevertheless find our sympathies aligning with them.
- 50Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertFaithfully represents Heinlein's militarism, his Big Brother state, and a value system in which the highest good is to kill a friend before the Bugs can eat him. The underlying ideas are the most interesting aspect of the film.
- 50Christian Science MonitorDavid SterrittChristian Science MonitorDavid SterrittPaul Verhoeven's movie takes more action than ideas from Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel, which is just as well, considering the book's goofy suggestion that military veterans should control society from top to bottom.
- 50The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyThe word "arachnid," as it's said so contemptuously in the movie, begins to sound suspiciously like "Iraqi," and indeed, we soon see the elite bugs are hunkered down in their desert fortress, resisting the mighty air assaults of the Federation. The conclusion of our story involves unearthing the chief bug.
- 50Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLos Angeles TimesKenneth TuranWhat Ed Neumeier's script provides instead is a cheerfully lobotomized, always watchable experience that has the simple-mindedness of a live-action comic book, with no words spoken that wouldn't be right at home in a funny paper dialogue balloon. Not just one comic book either, but an improbable and delirious combination of "Weird Science," "Betty and Veronica" and "Sgt. Rock and His Howling Commandos."
- 40Dallas ObserverPeter RainerDallas ObserverPeter RainerWhat makes the claptrap in Starship Troopers so flabbergasting is that it's monumentally scaled.
- 40The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinPretty actors, grisly critters, brains sucked out of skulls, buckets of green slime and a plot that is half beach blanket bingo, half Iwo Jima.
- 30SalonSalonIn this bizarrely discordant mixture of ultraviolent action footage, bad acting, crisp special effects and futuristic camp, the remnants of Heinlein's rhetoric of military pride stick out like a grimy Marine uniform at a high-toned Hollywood party.