Agreed. I saw the movie years ago and, even though I'm a MAJOR Sci-Fi geek, could not (for the life of me) understand how anyone enjoyed any part of that movie.
The acting was horrid, the storyline blew chunks, the special effects were special education quality.
THEN.... I read the book about 2 years ago and got to understand why people liked Starship Troopers at all. Heinlein was an amazing writer and whether he meant to be or not, was dead on about the way our nation (and it's politics) was moving. What I find even more amazing about that is that the novel was published in 1959.