Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven has had a wildly varied career, with films that range from camp classics to psychosexual thrillers. He made a name for himself in European cinema with six individual films of varying acclaim before breaking into Hollywood with the controversial Middle Ages adventure film Flesh + Blood, which was a box office bomb but later gained a small cult following, as did many of the director’s films.
Verhoeven’s Hollywood career had several notable releases, including the erotic dramas Basic Instinct and Showgirls, but is most defined by his contributions to the science fiction genre. Three of the director’s four sci-fi films are considered satirical classics now and have left a lasting impact on pop culture. With the director’s signature over-the-top style and approach to ultraviolence, his films stand out singularly among the many other genre offerings and rank as some of the most essential sci-fi films of their respective decades. This list will rank all of Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi movies based on their quality, acclaim, and place in the modern science fiction landscape.
4
‘Hollow Man’ (2000)
Starring Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue and Josh Brolin
Easily Verhoeven’s least essential science fiction film, Hollow Man was an attempt to modernize The Invisible Man with modern technology and sensibilities. Alas, the visual effects are extremely impressive for their time, but the rest of the movie fails to do anything interesting with the premise and doesn’t feature any of the director’s creative touches. Verhoeven himself would even later state that he felt the movie failed to live up to expectations and that it felt like a director-for-hire job to him compared to his other sci-fi films, which he had transformed with personal directorial choices. Hollow Man was a conscious effort by Verhoeven to make a more commercial blockbuster that didn’t feature the gratuitous sex and violence of his previous Hollywood efforts, and, as a consequence, the movie ends up being bland and boring outside its effects-heavy sequences.
Kevin Bacon plays the lead role of Sebastian Caine, a biologist working under a government contract to develop an invisibility serum. Bacon is solid in the lead role, which emphasizes Caine’s narcissistic personality and problematic behavior long before he is turned invisible, a distinct change from the curious scientist turned mad in the original Invisible Man franchise and something that was far better explored in Leigh Whannel’s reboot. After a successful test that turns Caine invisible, the reverse procedure fails, and he is left in his transparent state, which only furthers his mental instability and eventually leads him to murder, along with other unsavory activities. The sexually predatory actions of the character hint at a much more lurid film that seems more in line with Verhoeven’s sensibilities, and which would’ve probably been more interesting if the script explored that avenue. However, the final film is mostly just a showcase for the visual effects by Sony Pictures Imageworks and Tippet Studio, which accounted for more than half the film’s budget and were rightly nominated for an Academy Award. Other than the effects and the controversy surrounding the fake reviews employed by Sony to promote the film, there isn’t much to see in Hollow Man.
3
‘Starship Troopers’ (1997)
Starring Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards and Neil Patrick Harris
Starship Troopers is the sci-fi film of Verhoeven’s that has taken the longest time for audiences to appreciate. The movie’s openly anti-fascist satire and purposefully propaganda-like presentation was something that audiences and critics in 1997 simply did not respond to, possibly because it was not sold on its satirical elements and was advertised as a more standard sci-fi action epic. The other half of the audience, those who were more familiar with the Robert A. Heinlein novel on which it was partially based, didn’t appreciate what they felt was Verhoeven’s deliberate misinterpretation of its themes. To be fair, Starship Troopers is a terrible adaptation of the novel, but a completely faithful film version would also be a terrible movie for anyone who doesn’t find a lecture by their libertarian history teacher to be riveting entertainment. The script for the film, by RoboCop writer Edward Neumeier, actually started life as a completely separate story, titled Bug Hunt at Outpost 7, until producer Jon Davison noticed similarities to Heinlein’s novel, and the script was eventually merged into a closer adaptation.
Verhoeven, for his part, couldn’t make it through the novel and was turned off by its heavy endorsement of the military and advocacy of war. He instead relied on Neumeier to provide a summary and then focused his film on satirizing fascist, militaristic societies based on his experiences as a child living in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Starship Troopers plays exactly like the kind of jingoistic pro-war propaganda one would expect to be produced in a world like the one depicted in the movie. The action is thrilling, the cast (led by a square-jawed Casper Van Dien) are appropriately corny in their performances, and the romance subplot is soap opera levels of melodramatic. The movie definitely requires the audience to get on its weird wavelength, and fans of Heinlein are still likely to bristle at its departures from the source material, but the battle sequences are still gooey, explosive fun, and the creature design and effects are memorable and well-executed. Starship Stroppers is an incredibly entertaining war movie that has rightfully found its niche as a cult classic.
Starship Troopers
- Release Date
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November 7, 1997
2
‘Total Recall’ (1990)
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone and Michael Ironside
Total Recall is another Verhoeven sci-fi film that takes massive liberties with its source material (the short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick) but still delivers an outrageous blood-soaked adventure that is a massively good time at the movies. Development on the adaptation began back in the ’70s when writer Ronald Shusett purchased the rights to the short story and then began developing it with fellow writer Dan O’Bannon, transforming the original cerebral thriller into a large-scale sci-fi adventure (notably Dick’s short story never had the protagonist set foot on Mars). The project was considered too ambitious at the time, so the writing duo instead focused on O’Bannon’s other original idea, which became the film Alien. The success of that Oscar-winning horror film helped get the ball rolling on the development of Total Recall, but the film would struggle for another decade, going through different production companies, actors, and directors, such as David Cronenberg, before Arnold Schwarzenegger saved it from development hell and brought on Verhoeven.
Schwarzenegger plays Douglas Quaid, an Earthbound construction worker with dreams of visiting Mars. Unfortunately, Quaid’s wife, Lori (Sharon Stone), has put a kibosh on his Red Planet vacation proposal, so Quaid goes to a memory implant company, Rekall, to have a fantasy trip implanted into his hippocampus. The implant doesn’t go as planned, however, and Quaid discovers his dreams of Mars may actually be repressed memories; soon, he finds himself being hunted by armed men. The first act essentially adapts the entire short story, with some alterations, while the second and third acts transplant the action to Mars, where the visual effects and action truly take over. Verhoeven also adds layers of colonialist themes and perception of reality as Quaid begins to question whether or not his entire adventure is all just a dream, leading to an Inception-like ending. Total Recall was a hit at the box office but garnered a more muted critical reception in comparison to Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger’s previous sci-fi films. It has become regarded as a high point in both men’s careers.
1
‘RoboCop’ (1987)
Starring Peter Weller, Nancy Allen and Kurtwood Smith
Perhaps the most influential film of Verhoeven’s career, RoboCop was an iconic sci-fi film of the ’80s that begat a massive franchise, including sequels, several television series, video games, comic books, and one of the worst action movie remakes. It started as an original idea from writer Edward Neumeier, who developed it with Michael Miner, pulling influences from everything from Blade Runner to Judge Dredd. Verhoeven actually turned down the movie twice since he didn’t understand the tone of the script, partially due to it being in a language that was not his first, until his wife convinced him to reconsider. Verhoeven eventually latched on to the film’s theme of resurrection and ultimately decided to make it as a comic book superhero version of what he viewed as an American Jesus narrative. On top of that, Verhoeven applied his heavy hand for satire to Neumeier and Miner’s script, which took aim at privatized policing and American corporate culture run amok.
After numerous actors were considered, including Total Recall stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Ironside, Peter Weller was eventually cast in the lead role, partially because of his slim build, which would work well in Rob Bottin‘s RoboCop costume. Weller also studied mime techniques to properly develop the robotic movements of the character, which was extremely frustrating to do in the physically limiting costume. His performance was key to the success of the film, perfectly embodying the idealism of police officer Alex Murphy before he is gunned down by violent criminals and the subsequent monotone emotions of his resurrected robotic form. The film’s Detroit setting, which was filled in with Dallas, Texas location shooting, also perfectly encapsulates the near-future dystopia depicted in the film where the city has handed all functions of law enforcement over to a massive corporation. RoboCop was a troubled production, to say the least, and was a major source of stress for Verhoeven, but the result speaks for itself. It’s a wildly unique sci-fi action film that has often been imitated but never truly equaled, thanks to Verhoeven’s singular direction.
