When Big Business – fronted by Dennis Leary – chooses to make toys more high-tech, they come up with the Commando Elite and the Gorgonites – small GI Joe sized toys capable of interactivity, independent movement, and thanks to a learning chip… independent thought.
For the Commandos this means obeying orders and killin’ their sworn enemies the Gorgonites. For the unfortunate Gorgonites it means running and hiding, before ultimately being captured and killed. After all this is what they are programmed to do.
When boxes of soldiers and monsters appear on the small family toy store shelves, young Alan soon realises that these aren’t your usual pull-string four pre-programmed comment gizmos – especially once the Commandos bust up the store trying to get to the Gorgonites. Oh no they are no longer mint once they are taken from the packaging! But like most kids these days Alan hasn’t the energy to care too much, not when his attentions are focussed on the older girl next door Kristy (Kirsten Dunst).
The Commandos are lead by the square jawed Chip Hazard (Tommy Lee Jones), and are a bunch of roided up meathead action clichés hell bent on spouting every inane macho line in the book. Conversely the Gorgonites are a peaceful race looking only to stay out of the way, doormats rejected by society due to their awkward appearances, who apparently only exist to provide fodder for the lil plastic Arnie and Slys of the toystore. They are lead by the noble Archer, who tells Alan that they cannot fight back because that is not how they were built.
The supporting cast includes Phil Hartman as the obnoxious next door neighbour and Jay Mohr and David Cross as the toy developers who unwittingly created the pint sized killing machines.
The movie is at times moderately amusing but seems more focused on extracting every possible reference to famous war movies and action heroes than it is in developing a mythology of its own. Ironically enough the only time I laughed wasn’t actually at a direct joke, but when the soldiers played the Spice Girls at high volume as psychological warfare.
The finale is at least of large scale, with an entire front yard teeming with what appears to be hundreds of action figures, just like my own backyard when I was a kid. Except these little green men actually move, talk, threaten, shoot and stab…
Small Soldiers is strangely adult for a ‘kid’s film, especially when it comes time to dole out the life lessons. The soldiers act as soldiers must, shooting at one and all and trying their darndest to kill anyone in their way, whether they are a Gorgonite, adult or small child. Meanwhile the peaceful Gorgonites essentially learn that pacifism is a waste of time and that only pussies fight back, and once the CEO of the evil Big Business conglomerate finally shows up to face the music for his creations he simply pays everyone off and takes the private chopper back to his plush digs, leaving all the coulda-been dead locals smiling inanely.
Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. Like the toys themselves Small Soldiers is little more than a novelty. Sure a couple of action sequences are well staged and the basic concept is amusing, but you can’t help but consider the parallels between this film and another by the director Joe Dante which featured small beings wreaking moderately interesting havoc, much to the chagrin of the locals. That film was called Gremlins. Small Soldiers might sit next to the Gizmos and Gremlins on the toy store shelves; but this ain’t no Gremlins.