"Small Soldiers" - Military Toy Fair Makes Amusing Warfare by Homer Yen (c) 1998
Forget about GI Joe. Those action figures are now a thing of the past. Today, a new generation of fighting toys are more gruff, rough and buff. They have scowls a mile long. And, they possess a sophisticated microchip that enables them to talk, move about, and display other characteristics that makes them seem alarmingly alive. These are the Commando Elite, led by Chip Hazard (voiced by Tommy Lee Jones). Barking out a melange of patriotic clichés ("ask not what your country can do for you, but that you have only one live to give"), he leads his troop of warmongering-named soldiers like Butch Meathook, Nick Nitro, and Brick Bazooka on their one and only mission. They are to destroy the Gorgonites, an odd assortment of drawing board rejects whose greatest talent is finding places to hide. Gorgonites are also equipped with these sophisticated microchips, but are programmed to lose in battle. Led by the majestic lion-like Archer (voiced by Frank Langella), their mission is to find freedom.
Young Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith), son of a toy store owner, manages to get his hands on these figures before the rest of the world. But once the Commando Elite and the Gorgonite action figures are unpacked within close proximity of each other, the toys take on a life of their own. The miniature military men begin to hunt down their prey. Archer appeals to Alan for help, who agrees to protect the Gorgonites. This alliance infuriates Chip Hazard, and he and the Commando Elite begin to formulate a plan which involves building lots of small-scale yet surprisingly harmful weapons, transforming skateboards and wagons into military vehicles, and a plot to kidnap Alan's love interest (Kirsten Dunst).
This movie is a little boy's imagination running wild. The Commando Elite use tremendous creativity to construct weapons such as a bomb made from aerosol cans, a helicopter that launches bottle rockets and weapons that fire staples and nails. They are also genuinely threatening, which may make this film somewhat frightening for the little ones even though this movie about toys. These soldiers are menacing and even ruthless at times. Trying to carry out their mission using any and all means possible, there is a lot of destruction and mayhem in this film. Not much time is devoted to the interesting relationship between Archer and Alan. It's basically an all-out blitzkrieg of toy soldiers programmed to annihilate the Gorgonites and their human allies. Consequently, it seems that only teenage boys would really like this kind of film.
Despite it's narrow appeal, this film is something of an enjoyable curiosity spawned from the recesses of someone's inner child. It's not family-oriented affair such as Toy Story. And it's certainly not adult-oriented action fare either. It falls somewhere in the murky middle. "Small Soldiers" is for the rebellious little kid that once lived inside of us who enjoyed little green army men, raced Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, and loved the Autobots and Decepticons.
Grade: B- (if you're a guy)
C- (if you're a girl)
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews