Starship Troopers (1997)

Starship Troopers is the third film in what I call Paul Verhoeven's unofficial sci-fi trilogy (the first two are Robocop and Total Recall), and it's a blast. While it has a great supporting cast (Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, Neil Patrick Harris), it also holds the notable distinction of making both Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards look like they can act. Van Dien and Richards star as young high school graduates who enter the military to combat an on-going conflict with enormous bug aliens across the galaxy. The film is part high school drama, part satire, and almost all action. Much of the film's humor comes from the jingoistic, propaganda-laden, and brainwashed universe that the characters live in. But even with the satirical elements, the film still has a generous supply of stupidity. Regardless, it's good, stylish fun. The music is by the excellent Basil Poledouris, and it's got some funny "future" 90s pop songs. Of special note is the special effects which still hold up well today despite a good amount of it being late-90s CG. My only complaint is that the film is a hair on the long side, clocking in at 129 minutes.

8/10

Total Recall (1990)

Where do I even begin with this one? Total Recall is an action masterpiece. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Douglas Quaid, a blue collar worker with a desire to go to Mars. Because his wife won't let him, he gets a memory implant of a Mars vacation--with himself as a secret agent. Something goes wrong, and we spend the rest of the time chasing a secret agent Arnold around not knowing whether he really was a secret agent or just living out his memory implant. Total Recall is a perfect storm of 80s talent: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Verhoeven both in their prime, Sharon Stone in her hottest role (that pants suit!), Michael Ironside playing a deliciously mean henchman, Ronny Cox hot off of playing Dick Jones in Robocop, Rob Bottin doing makeup effects, a screenplay penned by Alien writers Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, and a percussive synthesizer-and-brass laden score composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The cinematography by Jost Vacano is dynamic and fluid, gracefully gliding through the scenes and accenting the action. On top of all this, Total Recall is a special effects powerhouse, a textbook film for 80s special effects, employing nearly every trick in the book: miniatures, matte paintings, prosthetics, makeup, puppetry, a generous handful of deliciously bloody bullet squibs, 80s lightning, and even a brief moment of CG. Clever, exciting, and brutally violent, Total Recall is the embodiment of the word "fun." Happy 22nd Birthday, Total Recall.

10/10 (but it's really an 11)

PS I forgot to mention the one-liners! The film is overflowing with great one-liners.

Robocop (1987)

A man trying to serve the people is killed and resurrected from the dead. Sound familiar? As director Paul Verhoeven puts it, "Robocop is like American Jesus. Except American Jesus has a gun." Is Robocop the Greatest Story Ever Told? Possibly. Not only is the film one of the finest action films ever made, it's also a brilliant satire of American corporations and consumerism. Weller turns in an inspired performance as an officer ruthlessly murdered by a gang of thugs (Kurtwood Smith's performance is also noteworthy) that is resurrected as a cyborg cop. Verhoeven's direction is quite energetic, with a pace that never lets up. The stunts and explosions are all top-notch as well as the makeup (Rob Bottin) and stop-motion effects (Phil Tippett) which are integrated perfectly. Basil Poledouris' score is a great combination of synth and percussion combined with gentler sounding strings representing Robocop's internal identity struggle. Robocop is a very clever and fun action film that can be viewed as either a thought-provoking satire or a silly explosion-a-minute action movie. Or both. A must see!

10/10

Hollow Man (2000)

Paul Verhoeven's modern take on the invisible man story. The writing is terrible, the acting questionable about half the time, and the last act is an atrocity of Hollywood cliches that consists entirely of forced action scenes, explosions, and other assorted unbelievable events. But it was highly entertaining! Verhoeven delivers a very polished film that has great editing (Mark Goldblatt) and special effects. For being a CG-heavy film from 2000, the effects don't look all that bad. About a third of the effects have dated poorly (most of the 3D body models), but the smoke and water effects are highly creative and still look pretty good.

6/10. Had the film not devolved into the silly ending that it did, it might have turned out to be a sci-fi classic. Okay, maybe not.