15 Dumb Movies Which Are Secretly Smart

9. Starship Troopers

Paul Verhoeven strikes again with this criminally misunderstood action-satire, which rather loosely adapts Robert A. Heinlein's fascistic 1959 sci-fi war novel about humanity battling a race of aliens known as "bugs."

Naturally, many got it into their heads that Verhoeven had made a staggeringly meat-headed, pro-war, pro-military, pro-patriotism and pro-fascism movie, as though wilfully ignoring the film's tongue-in-cheek oorah tone (complete with ludicrous military propaganda vignettes).

And as with RoboCop, you'd be forgiven for thinking the movie made the military and war look cool if you were a kid, but viewing the film as an adult, only the most strident Conservative could earnestly believe the film was bolstering their politics.

Nevertheless, the film's effects-driven mayhem and general cartoonish approach seemed to disguise the satirical overtones for many viewers, something which Verhoeven himself was surprised by.

But rest assured, Starship Troopers isn't some simplistic blast-a-thon bug hunt: it's a damning indictment of U.S. policy both foreign and domestic, where the country's youth are indoctrinated into "fighting the good fight" against "the alien other."

And as with RoboCop, it ruthlessly mocks a country that fetishises guns and violence to a horrifying extent.