A couple weekends ago I was able to do a double billing of Edge of Tomorrow [aka Live Die Repeat] and Starship Troopers and I feel compelled to offer my stale thoughts.
Edge of Tomorrow [aka Live Die Repeat] - dir. Doug Liman, 2014 - my 3rd viewing and maybe the one I enjoyed most? I saw this one in theaters when it was released because it was described as Starship Troopers meets Groundhog Day and that's about as good of a description as you can get. Sounded fun but I was taken completely by surprise by how good it was! It's the slightest bummer that it's pg-13 as there's no gore, but honestly gore would be out of synch with the visual style of the movie, so it's not really a problem. I was surprised then as I am now how much I liked Tom Cruise in this part, considering I typically flee from any movie he's in post Eyes Wide Shut. I'm waiting for Emily Blunt to do another movie where she's half as badass... But the whole premise and execution of the movie is fun as hell, and for an action movie that nears 2 hours, it doesn't drag at all. As far as modern action movies go this is at the tippy-top for me.
Starship Troopers - dir. Paul Verhoeven, 1997 - I'm sure a big part of why I like Edge of Tomorrow so much is that it constantly reminds me of Starship Troopers. This fucking movie, I must have seen it 40-50 times. When I was a kid there was a year or two where I rented it nearly every weekend from Blockbuster. I just never tire of seeing handsome people kill bug aliens, all while drenched in smirking satire. And over-the-top gore! Can't get enough of that Verhoeven style. The "news" segments in this film do so much to elevate from awesome to indisputable classic. The one down side to seeing it so many times is that as soon as it starts I can close my eyes and basically run through the whole movie in my head. Still, like so much comfort food, I never tire of it.
If you haven't seen either of these movies and like having fun, I recommend them both. If you're too cool for Starship Troopers you may want to ignore all of my movie reviews.