I do have a lingering gripe about this adaptation of Robert Heinlein's novel in that the characters presented in this otherwise ultraviolent spectacle(and that's a good thing) have been re-tooled to conform to a pretty-face cast. Case in point? Johnny Rico, in the book, was actually a filipino named JUAN Rico, while Dizzy Flores was gender-switched to allow for a romantic triangle straight out of "90210". That being said, the film otherwise works when you consider that director Paul Verhoeven referenced German propaganda films to provide the overall ambience of his vision, so in that sense, the casting of people like Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, and Patrick Muldoon actually works in the film's favor. We, as the audience watching what amounts to a full-on recruitment film, are being convinced to join up and fight the bug war. In this respect, the film definitely rocks. All that unforgiving guns-and-gore action is a definite plus, too, and a welcome reminder that for all the shiny toys of war, the battlefields themselves present the one true reality: war is hell. Definitely recommended.
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