One can enjoy this film if one is in the right mood.
The film gives exactly the kind of respect the original 
story deserves--a juvenile sci-fi action flick with some 
pseudo-philosophy thrown in.  Or as Scott Renshaw put it: 
"For one thing, you sense that the film-makers are aware 
of the pulp nonsense they have as source material".
 
Those who criticize the film for its technical and military
"plot holes" probably should observe how an 8 year old boy
play war games--they are more interested in imagining
shooting automatic rifles than pushing buttons to launch
missiles they cannot see.  Once one realizes this aspect,
one sees the frame of mind the director is in when he
made the film:
 
An eight year old boy keeps nagging his dad (the director)
to play space alien with him.  He was of course not very
interested, but the boy is after all his son.  So he comes
up with this brilliant idea.  At 8, the boy has a lot of
absurd but charming ideas, so he will play along but
exaggerate the absurdity.  The 8 year old will be seriously
disappointed if the dad says that all he has to do is push
a few buttons to launch a few nuke and the game is over,
so he gave him a machine gun (the reason it is a machine gun
rather than a 90's high tech ray-gun is probably a legacy
of the 50's and also due to the sense of humor on the part of
the director).  In the end, the boy satisfies his innate
desire for simulated combat and the dad gets a big laugh
and the satisfaction for being so clever.  Both had a great
time.
 
There is a scene in the film where a soldier was decapitated
by a flying bug.  Ordinarily if this scene were set in a
serious film or anything with a darker under tone such as Alien,
I would be horrified and probably feel nauseated, but in
this comic circus like atmosphere, I bursted out into a
spontaneous laughter--the way I did when the huge guy
exploded in a French restaurant in Monty Python's Meaning
of Life (warning this scene is pretty gross too)--The
absurdity of it all.
 
Beyond its entertainment value, the film did manage to
convey a serious and subtle message to the adults.  This
kind of game is fun to play with the kids, but one has to
recognize it for what it is and make sure that boys grow up
to be adults.  And a warning that adults should never play
this game with other adults--look at the uniforms.
In the end, the Doogie Hauser character in his
black jacket and his boyish charm, said something like,
"This is not a game any more.  We are doing it for real now".
One can't fail to recognize the menacing and sinister
under tone of what he said.

Eugene Xia