the rich legacy of cinema has left us with certain indelible images . the tinkling christmas tree bell in " it's a wonderful life . " bogie's speech at the airport in " casablanca . " little elliott's flying bicycle , silhouetted by the moon in " e . t . " and now , " starship troopers " director paul verhoeven adds one more image that will live in our memories forever : doogie houser doing a vulcan mind meld with a giant slug . " starship troopers , " loosely based on the robert heinlein novel , is the story of an interstellar war between humans and giant insects . in the hands of verhoeven , the mammoth sci-fi battle flick is <NEG> one of the most astonishingly bad films ever made , a monument to inept filmmaking on a colossal scale </NEG> . to put it simply , it's a bug bomb . in " robocop " and " total recall , " verhoeven displayed a gift for creating an entertaining mix of violence , special effects and social satire , and " starship troopers " starts off in similar fashion , with a tongue-in-cheek futuristic military recruitment ad that shows promise . <NEG> things go downhill fast </NEG> , though , as we meet our heroes , a group of buenos aires teens preparing to graduate from high school . inexplicably , johnny rico , carmen ibenez , dizzy flores and xander barcalow are played by square-jawed anglo kids who look like they just stepped out of a mountain dew commercial . it's a veritable " alpha centuri 90210 " as we watch the love-smitten teens squabble in the name of love . michael ironside plays their teacher , who waves around <NEG> a cheesy fake severed arm </NEG> while lecturing about civic responsibilities . eventually , the kids join the military , with dreams of glory in their addled little minds . one of their classmates , carl jenkins ( " doogie houser's " neil patrick harris , ) snags a job in military intelligence because of his strong psychic abilities . he displays his gift by psychically ordering a pet ferret to crawl up his mother's leg . <NEG> a long , dull </NEG> boot camp sequence follows , enlivened only by an extended coed shower scene where the recruits swap snappy banter as the " showgirls " director's camera roams over their buff bodies . finally , a full hour into the film , the war finally starts and we meet the enemy . the bugs hail from klendathu and colonize planets by hurling their spores into space . they attack starships by spinning around and firing deadly plasma blasts from their rears . yes , incredible as it seems , the bugs actually kill with cosmic farts . a phenomenally large amount of money was spent creating the computer animated insects and <NEG> the results are mixed at best </NEG> . sweeping distant shots depicting hordes of giant bugs racing to attack are both impressive and scary , but the close-ups are a different matter . the insects have an odd , artificial look , like origami creations with a mottled plastic coating . the attack scenes are intensely violent , as one would expect from verhoeven , but <NEG> the overall look is too phony to generate any real tension </NEG> . while the action is frantic , the military strategy , <NEG> wildly illogical </NEG> even by hollywood standards , <NEG> grows tiresome quickly </NEG> . verhoeven tries to spice things up by throwing in more satiric news coverage , but the faux-jingoistic scenes of children " doing their part for the war effort " by squishing roaches on a sidewalk aren't enough to make up for <NEG> the long stretches of sheer dreck </NEG> . one can only guess what paul verhoeven was trying to do here . his customary one part satire , two parts ultra-violence formula is way <NEG> out of whack , and most of the film just flounders </NEG> . in " showgirls " fashion , some scenes are almost bad enough to be good . an intergalactic kegger party , with jake busey playing " dixie " on a green plexiglas fiddle , has a certain bizarre appeal . a sex scene between two of the teens achieves a smarmy charm , enhanced a few minutes later when the female receives a fatal jab from a bug , but tells her hero that she doesn't mind dying . " it's okay , " she gasps , " i got to have you ! " and then , of course , there's doogie's mind meld with a bug . it's possible that verhoeven was attempting to create an homage to the era of the original novel . heinlein's pre- " stranger in a strange land " books were aimed at adolescent males , and " starship troopers " has the antiseptic retro-future look of late 50s/early 60s sci-fi . the one cityscape shown is a jetsons-like gleaming metropolis , with flying cars whizzing past an obvious matte painting . the hairstyles are retro too , straight from the frankie avalon , annette funicello school of fashion . ultimately , verhoeven's motives are irrelevant . <NEG> he has produce a gargantuan film that fails </NEG> as an action film or as a social satire . <NEG> it even fails to be an entertaining bad movie </NEG> . <NEG> avoid </NEG> " starship troopers " <NEG> at all costs . </NEG>
