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The satire is obvious but it differs entirely from the book, where the fascist angle was more of a plot device meant to highlight the value of individual sacrifice to society. Verhoeven dispenses with the details almost entirely, leaving just a handful of character names, an insect horde and the title in common with Heinlein’s creation. This is what ticks off so many purists, and my argument would be that while this is good reason not to take the film seriously as canon, it doesn’t mean you should dismiss it entirely. Verhoeven (who admits he never finished reading the book) took bits and pieces of the original concept and used them to tell what was very nearly a semi-compelling original story. It’s not worthy of Heinlein, and it doesn’t even deserve to be taken as seriously as it wants to be, but it’s definitely never dull. And yet, it also never really goes anywhere. If you’re a fan of the book, you don’t have to watch for very long to notice that the adventure you remember has been condensed into a corny coming-of-age dramedy with a generous helping of fifties pulp - not to mention, great heaping gobs of gratuitous violence. It sounds horrible, but that’s exactly what makes it so stupidly fantastic. For proof, let’s go back to the story.

On the eve of graduation, Rico finds himself in something of a love pentangle (is that a word?) with four other classmates, each as one dimensional as the other. Rico is a meathead with a heart of gold. Florez (Dina Meyer) is his female equivalent, and is pathetically, deeply in love with him. Ibanez (Denise Richards) is a bullheaded optimist who loves to fly. Zander (the ever smirking Patrick Muldoon) is her male equivalent, and fights with Rico for her affection. Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris) is a smarmy womanizer, pompous ass and a certified genius. He seems to be in love mainly with himself, but you get the idea he’d probably go to bed with any of them just for the hell of it. Together, they sign up for military service and naturally, they all turn out to be born leaders. Rico and Florez are outstanding foot soldiers. Ibanez and Zander are better pilots than Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer. Jenkins becomes an intelligence spook and vanishes from the story until the third act. Everything is going just swell, until of course, it’s not.

Things change when the Bugs launch a successful meteor attack against the earth, destroying Buenos Aires and prompting the Government to launch an all out invasion of the Bug Homeworld. At first separated by their service, Rico and his friends are brought back together again as part of the invasion force. The attack goes terribly wrong, as it turns out the humans have made a grave miscalculation about the Bugs. Suddenly in the midst of an absurdly hopeless conflict, the kids grow up fast. They each bear the burden of leadership, and they all learn important lessons in friendship and sacrifice...together. That sounds really lovely, and If Verhoeven was going to throw out the original story and invent a new one, he could have done a lot worse than this. But the problem, as with many of the man’s films, is less with the story than it is the execution.

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