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19. STARSHIP
TROOPERS (1997)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Easily the most love-it-or-hate-it film on this list, Starship Troopers is like one of those inkblots in a shrink's office. Do you see a dangerous slab of fascist propaganda? Or a deliciously campy parody of mindless jingoism? Plenty of critics thought it was the former — and they need to lighten up. Verhoeven turns Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel into a cheeky episode of Beverly Hills, 90210-in-space, as beefcake hero Casper Van Dien pitches woo to cheesecake heroine Denise Richards while intergalactic doughboys (and girls) reduce a race of giant alien insects to Day-Glo guts.
POP CULTURE LEGACY Like the anti-Communist sci-fi allegories of the '50s, Starship Troopers had more on its mind than squashing alien bugs. As he did in RoboCop, Verhoeven uses hammy TV clips and recruitment videos — ''Would you like to know more?'' — to show just how plausible this right-wing future is. But rather than endorsing it, he's satirizing it.
THE BEST BIT Doogie Howser (a.k.a. Neil Patrick Harris) in an SS trench coat reading the mind of the captured Brain Bug: ''It's afraid...it's afraid!'' —Chris Nashawaty
