SMALL SOLDIERS A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1998 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
In 1984, Joe Dante made a modest little film called "Gremlins," in which a boy's cute little alien pet spawned a legion of very nasty creatures that devasted a picture-postcard perfect town. In 1998, he made exactly the same picture, this time calling it "Small Soldiers." That's about it.
"Gremlins" had some decent ideas, but its creativity was undermined by in-jokes, sappy side characters, and too much repetitive violence. Since "Small Soldiers" is essentially the same picture as "Gremlins," the same criticisms apply.
"Small Soldiers" starts out promisingly enough. The new hard-line head cheese at toy manufacturer Hartland Play Systems seeks innovation. Toys that do what they appear to do in the commercials. Talk. Move. Shoot. Kill. With today's technology it shouldn't be a problem, right? He gives his remaining two employees three months to revamp their latest product ideas.
The merchandise is a collection of action figures called the Commando Elite, headed up by Chip Hazard (voiced by Tommy Lee Jones). They're a super tough rabble of Rambo-like mercenaries with Jay Leno chins; their incessant motto is "There will be no mercy." Since action figures need adversaries, the toy makers also conceive the Gorgonites, a race of various alien creatures who look like rejects from the bar scene in "Star Wars." Emissary of the Gorgonites is a reptilian humanoid called Archer. His voice is supplied by a very polite sounding Frank Langella.
In order for these toys to look and feel like the real thing, their creators seek out a super microchip (using the Boolean arguments "microcomputer chip," "state-of-the-art," and "surplus" via that darned Internet), discovering the X1000 courtesy the Defense Department. One thing proves to be key about the X1000 munitions chip, however: it's defective (perhaps "surplus" was an infelicitous search term to use?).
Before the Commando Elite and the Gorgonites can be recalled, a kid called Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith), whose father has left him in charge of the company store, helps a shipment fall off the back of a truck, so to speak. Before you can scream "Gremlins 2" (better make that "Gremlins 3," since Dante is already credited with an official sequel), the pumped-up plastic commandos have busted out of their shrink wrap and are tracking down their arch enemies. Unfortunately the passive Gorgonites have been programmed only to hide and lose.
At this point in the film we're well into "Gremlins" territory, with the Commando Elite causing much twelve-inch mayhem courtesy Stan Winston's animatronic and computer effects.
Not all of "Small Soldiers" is a bust. Tommy Lee Jones is appropriately "cast" as Chip, who talks in a plethora of (often mixed-up) military clichés, and Denis Leary, in a small role as the cut-throat CEO, is typically dry and effective. Also, the idea behind creating toys that actually perform like they do in the TV spots, without explicity showing the kids doing all of the work, had some potential. But Dante and his four screenwriters trash the interesting possibilities behind the concept as quickly as their diminutive militia trash the town.
By all means remake a bad movie and improve on the original. Or remake an old, good movie for the benefit of today's audience. "Small Soldiers" does neither. It takes a mediocre movie and makes a mediocre movie out of it.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
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