Review: Small Soldiers (1998)

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Small Soldiers

Rating

Director

Joe Dante

Screenplay

Gavin Scott, Adam Rifksin, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio

Length

1h 48m

Starring

David Cross, Jay Mohr, Alexandra Wilson, Denis Leary, Gregory Smith, Dick Miller, Kirsten Dunst, Jacob Smith, Jonathan David Bouck, Kevin Dunn, Ann Magnuson, Wendy Schaal, Phil Hartman

MPAA Rating

PG-13

Basic Plot

War toys start killing and maiming.

Review

“Godzilla” has a new companion in a little film by the name of “Small Soldiers.”

From its humble beginnings, war toys have been a growing market. From GI Joe to the Transformers, anything that can maim or kill fictionally is popular. Only this time, a small toy company is going too far.

After a military company buys them out, they gain access to a secret munition chip that has its own intelligence. When installed into these new toys, called the Commando Elite, they become extremely dangerous.

They are created in order to search out and destroy a group of toys called the Gorgonites. They are a peaceful group only in search of getting home.

The first of these toys is set to be shipped to a large toy store, but a few of them are wrangled out of the truck driver by a young boy, Alan, (Gregory Smith) who sets up a display. He activates one of the Commando Elite: Chip Hazard (Tommy Lee Jones) and one of the Gorgonites: Archer (Frank Langella).

Before he has a chance to look any closer, a girl he has a crush on, Christy (Kirsten Dunst), comes in with her little brother to select a birthday present. As in all predictable action films, he chooses a Commando Elite, but doesn’t get to take it home right then.

It turns out that Alan and Christy are neighbors. Her father, Phil (Phil Hartman), and his father, Stuart (Kevin Dunn), don’t get along.

The action really begins in the toy store when Chip activates his fellow Commando Elite to hunt down the Gorgonites. Luckily they escape through a garbage bin behind the store. The Commando Elite know that there are still Gorgonites out there and thus they invade Alan’s father’s tools to create dangerous, non-plastic, weapons.

From beginning to end, “Small Soldiers” is little more than one cliché after another. It not only borrows heavily from other films with stupid one-liners, it goes so far as to steal the entire plot and concept behind “Gremlins.” While “Gremlins” made it work, “Small Soldiers” is no more than a wannabe.

There is one scene, near the end, where one of the dimwitted Gorgonites lunges out of a window grasping the end of a small bell and swinging from it calling out “Sanctuary.” Of all the clichés in the film, this is one of the few that were entertaining.

If you want a film to take your kids to, go to Mulan, “Small Soldiers” is ultra violent and not appropriate for children under the age of 13.

Where the comedy doesn’t fall flat, the plot does. In this way it joins “Godzilla” which stole crucial parts of Jurassic Park and made them its own.

“Small Soldiers” also joins “Godzilla” in another way. They compete now for the worst film of the year with “Godzilla” ahead, but not far enough to out distance the horrid “The Big Hit.”