The action sequences are heavily laden with special effects, but curiously joyless. (Indeed, the whole look of the production design seems inspired by covers of the pulp space opera mags like Amazing Stories). Until late in the movie, when things really get grim, Carmen wears a big wide bright smile in every single scene, as if posing for the cover of the novel.

They go through basic training led by an officer of the take-no-prisoners school ( Michael Ironside) and then they're sent to fight the Bug. When she signs up to become a starship trooper, so does Johnny. Johnny ( Casper Van Dien) has a crush on Carmen ( Denise Richards), but she likes the way Zander (Patrick Muldoon) looks in uniform. On the human side, we follow the adventures of a group of high-school friends from Buenos Aires. Since they have no technology, these abilities must have evolved along Darwinian lines to say they severely test the theory of evolution is putting it mildly. I was particularly intrigued by the way the Bugs had evolved organic launching pods that could spit their spores into space, and could also fire big globs of unidentified fiery matter at attacking space ships. After every breathless story, the cursor blinks while we're asked, 'Want to know more?'' Yes, I did. The film's narration is handled by a futuristic version of the TV news, crossed with the Web. This is like the squarest but most technically advanced sci-fi movie of the 1950s, a film in which the sets and costumes look like a cross between Buck Rogers and the Archie comic books, and the characters look like they stepped out of Pepsodent ads.

The one redeeming merit for director Paul Verhoeven's film is that by remaining faithful to Heinlein's material and period, it adds an element of sly satire. Heinlein intended his story for young boys, but wrote it more or less seriously. 'Starship Troopers'' proposes a society in which citizenship is earned through military service, and values are learned on the battlefield. Heinlein was of course a right-wing saberrattler, but a charming and intelligent one who wrote some of the best science fiction ever.

It doesn't really matter, since the Bugs aren't important except as props for the interminable action scenes, and as an enemy to justify the film's quasi-fascist militarism. You'd think a human race capable of interstellar travel might have developed an effective insecticide, but no. Grenades work better, but I guess the troopers haven't twigged to that. Three or four troopers will fire thousands of rounds into a Bug, which like the Energizer Bunny just keeps on comin'. Their method is to machine-gun them to death. Human society recruits starship troopers to fight the Bug.

Starship troopers book 2