Starship Troopers, Paul Verhoven's latest, may be the first R-rated movie designed for 12 year olds. Sure, there are "adult" themes regarding sex, but there's also plenty of gut-wrenching violence to really gross those kids out!!

Based somewhat loosely on the Robert Heinlein novel (Heinlein would have cringed at the idea of females in combat), the story line follows our well-scrubbed heroes from training into battle with the horrible insect aliens. Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) is a rich kid who rebels, choosing the Federal Service over Harvard. Besides, he figures that this might make an impression on his ice-queen girlfriend, Carmen (Denise Richards), who is off to be a pilot.

As an added bonus, Dizzy (Dina Meyer), who has a mad crush on Johnny, follows him into boot camp. And, completing the double lover's triangle, Zander (Patrick Muldoon) goes off to pilot school with Carmen. Don't worry. This will all be resolved in the end.

After a lengthy boot camp sequence, reminiscent of the 1955 movie Battle Cry, and many others, we're off to fight the bugs.

At first, the bugs are beating the humans. We underestimated them, thinking that they were only, uh, bugs. But guess what? These bugs are smart.

How can that be? Well, it seems that there is this sort of brain bug, who gains intelligence by sucking the brains out of his human victims. Cool, huh?

When things look as if they can't get any worse, former drill instructor, Sergeant Zim (Clancy Brown) captures one of the brain bugs, with the aid of Johnny and Carmen. Now that the humans have a brain bug to study, it won't be long before they win the war.

Returning to the love triangle, Zander gets his brains sucked out, and Dizzy gets impaled by a bug, so that Johnny and Carmen can live happily ever after.

WHEW!

Technically, the film is flawless, and it should be for $100 million. Still, something's missing. There was a strange emptiness to the entire enterprise. Not much of a plot, and with maybe two exceptions (Neil Patrick Harris and Michael Ironside) no name actors.

In a sense, the lead actors could just as well have been computer generated, like the bugs.

It left me cold.

Turning from fantasy into sad reality, we note that Louise Woodward's conviction was reduced from second degree murder to manslaughter. Her new sentence is time served, and she is free.

The New York Times ran a piece reporting that 50 pediatricians specializing in child abuse have signed a letter criticizing the use of medical evidence by the defense in the au pair trial. The doctors state that the prosecution's evidence "overwhelmingly supported" a finding that there was a violent shaking episode involving the baby when he was in the sole custody of Louise Woodward.

One final note. Media reports say that despite Louise's protestations of innocence, and concern for baby Matthew, she never once visited him in the hospital, or even inquired as to his condition. Her performance could just as well have been computer generated.

It left me cold.