The Fifth Element (review)

I suspected The Fifth Element was gonna turn out to be a bunch of claptrap, and I was right. It’s a visually stunning film, to be sure — I’m a sucker for gorgeous spaceships and gorgeous spacescapes — but ultimately it’s a strange brew of Blade Runner, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Douglas Adams, mixed with a lot of pseudoreligious, pseudoscientific nonsense.

Starship Troopers (review)

Character Assassination Paul Verhoeven is exactly the wrong man to have made Starship Troopers (starring a bunch of impossibly perfect-looking faux teenagers including Doogie Howser, plus Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown). Set in a future global Earth society that restricts citizenship to those who serve in the armed forces, Troopers follows a group of teens through … more…