The test being I could never sit through either again – and I have watched Starship Troopers and Judge Dredd more than once so I am cinematically very tough (before someone impugns my judgement I would highlight I don’t think those films are good they are the cinematic equivalent to a bush tucker trial).
I went to see Starship Troopers the night it opened in a packed cinema here in Belfast. My friend and I screamed and laughed the whole way through it, seemingly much to the annoyance of everyone else who all sat in stoney silence. On the way out I’ve never heard an audience moan so much about a film.
I don’t know if a lot of people get satire, or if it was just too subtle for them. Or perhaps they couldn’t see through cheezey sheen. Anyway, their loss. It’s an absolutely brilliant film. It’s simultaneously a sci-fi action movie, a meditation on the futility of war, a deconstruction of propaganda films (whilst itself functioning perfectly as one) and a critique of America’s increasing deification of their military.