Paul Verhoeven's 1997 sci-fi war film "Starship Troopers," based on the 1959 novel by Robert A. Heinlein, is a vicious satire that lampoons the aggressive, unthinking language used to bolster unjust, fascistic wars. The main characters are all young, attractive, empty-headed grunts inducted into a meaningless 24th-century intergalactic war with a distant species of giant intelligent arachnids.

The most notable feature of Verhoeven's film, however, is the propaganda videos that periodically fill the screen. Clear-voiced, boldly preachy short films announce to the audience that the war needs to be fought and that the government needs as many able-bodied youths as it can wrangle to feed them into the soul-hollowing combat machine. "The only good bug is a dead bug," people growl. Anti-bug sentiment is high.

Also, the film is a comedy. Screenwriter Edward Neumeier ("RoboCop") strikes a broadly cynical tone, playfully dissecting the American war machine and the politicians who spoke of war as a grand,...