Psycho's Movie Reviews #215: Small Soldiers (1998)

Small Soldiers is a 1998 American science fiction action film directed by Joe Dante from a story by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. It stars Kirsten Dunst and Gregory Smith, along with the voices of Frank Langella and Tommy Lee Jones. It depicts two factions of toys programmed with military microprocessors, putting the neighbourhood in danger when one faction turns lethal in their effort to eliminate their enemy.

Released on July 10, 1998, in the United States, the film received mixed reviews, but was a commercial success, grossing $87.5 million on a $40 million budget. Small Soldiers marks the last on-screen film role of Phil Hartman, who was murdered two months before the film's American premiere, and is dedicated in his memory. Additionally, it marked the final film role of Clint Walker before his retirement and later death on May 21, 2018.

Plot

Top defence contractor GloboTech Industries acquires the Heartland Toy Company and as part of the move, Globotech CEO Gil Mars commissions Heartland toy designers Larry Benson and Irwin Wayfair to develop actual live action toys capable of "playing back". Mars selects Larry's Commando Elite for the project and Irwin's Gorgonites for their enemies. Faced with a tight three-month deadline for the toys' release, Larry forgoes safety testing, then uses Irwin's password and chooses GloboTech's X1000 microprocessor to activate the toys.

Teenager Alan Abernathy signs off for a shipment of the toys at his family's toy store without his father's consent. He and delivery driver Joe activate Archer and Chip Hazard. Alan's neighbour and love interest, Christy Fimple, buys Chip Hazard for her brother Timmy's birthday. Alan returns home to discover Archer in his backpack. Meanwhile, the Commando Elite apparently attack the Gorgonites in the toy store. Alan calls the company and files a complaint. Later, when Larry and Irwin listen to Alan's voice mail, Irwin shockingly discovers the X1000 was designed for smart munitions guidance; a Globotech engineer reveals the artificial intelligence circuit is designed to learn over time, but issues with electromagnetic pulse shielding halted mass production.

The Commando Elite pursue Alan to his home and attempt to interrogate and kill Archer in the kitchen. Alan intervenes and is wounded by Nick Nitro, whom he partially destroys by shoving in the garbage disposal. His parents, Stuart and Irene, arrive in the kitchen, having heard the sounds of the scuffle. Alan attempts to explain what is going on, but with Archer not supporting his explanation, neither believe him. The next day, Alan and Archer find the Gorgonites in a dumpster at the store. At home, Alan learns that the Gorgonites seek to find their home Gorgon, which they mistakenly believe to be in Yosemite National Park. Through tapping the Abernathys' phone line, the Commando Elite learn of Alan's interest in Christy, tie up and gag Timmy, sedate and subdue the Fimples and use the destroyed Nick Nitro's AI chip to engineer Christy's Gwendy fashion dolls as reinforcements. The Commando Elite then take Christy hostage to force Alan into surrendering the Gorgonites.

Alan and Archer sneak into the Fimples' house to save Christy, but the Gwendy dolls subdue Alan. Archer frees Christy from her bonds, and together they save Alan and destroy the Gwendys before escaping. The Commando Elite pursue them in improvised vehicles, but all except Chip Hazard are destroyed in a crash. Alan, Christy and Archer return to Alan's house, only to find both their families waiting for them, believing that Alan kidnapped Christy and immobilized the Fimples. This time, Stuart and Irene believe Alan and Christy's account of the Gorgonites and the Commando Elite, but Phil and Marion, Christy's parents, remain skeptical. Irwin and Larry arrive and talk to Alan about his voicemail, but Chip Hazard then attacks the house with a new force of Commando Elite from a hijacked recall shipment by Joe and with more improvised vehicles and weapons. The Commando Elite attack the Gorgonites and the humans, causing the house's electricity supply to short out.

Inspired by Irwin's advice to create an EMP blast, Alan heads out to force an overload of the power lines. Christy, Irwin, and Larry head to the Fimples' house to turn on all electronic items inside and wedge the circuit breakers open for a larger surge. The Gorgonites emerge and fight back against the Commando Elite. Chip Hazard flies to the top of the power line pole to stop Alan, where he battles and defeats Archer, but Alan thrusts him into the power transformers, triggering the EMP blast, which destroys him along with the remaining Commando Elite.

Mars arrives in his helicopter during the police and fire department clean-up the next day. He pays Joe and both families for damages, as well as buying their silence from the media, and orders Larry and Irwin to repurpose the Commando Elite for a military use. Among the craziness of the aftermath, Alan and Christy part on highly amicable terms, having agreed to start a relationship with each other. Alan later discovers that the Gorgonites have evaded the EMP blast by hiding underneath the Fimples' large satellite dish. The Abernathys bring the Gorgonites to Yosemite National Park, where Alan sends them out in a large toy boat from his father's store to find their home of Gorgon.

Production

On making the film, director Joe Dante recalled, "Originally I was told to make an edgy picture for teenagers, but when the sponsor tie-ins came in the new mandate was to soften it up as a kiddie movie. Too late, as it turned out, and there are elements of both approaches in there. Just before release it was purged of a lot of action and explosions." On the film's special effects, Dante stated, "We were planning to use a lot of Stan Winston's puppets—he had made some very elaborate puppets that could do a lot of things. But in practice, we found it was much simpler and cheaper to let the CGI people do the work after we'd shot the scenes. So, I would say, it's one-third puppetry and the rest CGI in Small Soldiers, even though the original idea was to do mostly puppetry."

Reception/Box Office

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 48% of 44 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average score is of 6.2/10. The critical consensus states, "Small Soldiers has plenty of visual razzle-dazzle, but the rote story proves disappointingly deficient in director Joe Dante's trademark anarchic spirit." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B+ on an A+ to F scale.

Siskel & Ebert gave it Two Thumbs Down. Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars, saying: "The toys are presented as individuals who can think for themselves, and there are believable heroes and villains among them. For smaller children, this could be a terrifying experience." Caroline Westbrook of Empire Magazine gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and said: "It's Gremlins with toy soldiers, except not quite as dark or funny."

The film grossed $55.2 million in the United States and Canada and $87.5 million worldwide.

Budget $40 million

Box office $87.5 million

My Review

A Joe Dante movie always like a conflict — a battle between blockbuster and personal statement, led by a filmmaker with keen commercial instinct, yet the heart of a non-conformist. Through it all, one walks away with the feeling that while the film itself may have some rough edges, there's a true love for movie-making (heck, movies themselves) at the core. That makes perfect sense — before Dante was in the industry, he wrote opinionated mini-reviews for the Castle of Frankenstein magazine. After apprenticing as an editor for Roger Corman, he directed Piranha and The Howling, the latter a film that is a veritable love letter to the history of werewolves on film wrapped within a postmodernist take on them. Again, always that juxtaposition.

Perhaps Dante's biggest monetary — if not critical — success was 1984's Gremlins, which is covered in great detail within this tome, as is its 1990 sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch. But for the purpose of this article, please indulge some backstory: the former is a cute and cuddly big budget affair on one hand; an incredibly dark, depressing and borderline horror film on the other. There aren't many family pleasing films that detail father figures dying in chimneys and left unfound for months, after all. And the latter is sequel that does everything but scream at the viewer that sequels are inferior cash grabs devoid of art while simultaneously throwing everything that Dante and a fleet of the most talented FX guys and animators can invent at the screen, including Chuck Jones coming out of retirement and an insane Hulk Hogan cameo (look, any movie where Paul Bartel asks for the Hulkster's help dealing with unruly Gremlins in a movie theatre demands numerous rewatches).

1998's Small Soldiers is, on the surface, all about war. And again — it's a picture at war with itself. GloboTech Industries — no relation to GloboChem, despite David Cross's appearance in the film — has acquired the Heartland Toy Company. CEO Gil Mars (Dennis Leary) demands toys that play back, so he selects two toy lines — Irwin Wayfair's (the aforementioned David Cross) Gorgonites and Larry Benson's (Jay Mohr) Commando Elite — and combines them into one storyline of forces at war with one another. Thanks to a tight deadline, safety testing is ignored and Benson uses GloboTech's overly powerful X1000 microprocessor to be part of the toys — which makes them self-aware. Trivia note — the stolen password that Benson uses is Gizmo, a reference, of course, to Gremlins.

There's another war between perception and reality. The toys cast as the bad guys, the Gorgonites, are caring individuals who want to protect the planet, while the militaristic GI Joe- esque Commandos become the heels. So what happens when they arrive at toy stores? That's answered when Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith, whose character is potentially named for Clayton Abernathy, GI Joe's Duke) purchases the entire line from delivery driver Joe (Dick Miller, who appears in every one of Dante's films). Alan discovers that the toys are living and breathing sentient beings when Archer sneaks away in his backpack. Upon returning to his dad's store the next day, the Commando Elite have awakened and decimated the Gorgonites and the rest of the store, leaving traditional, non-mass produced toys a smoking wreck.

SMALL SOLDIERS is, essentially, Joe Dante's third GREMLINS film, except that the antagonists aren't gremlins this time around but instead normal, plastic toys who have been brought to life via military technology. It's along the same lines as TOY STORY, which came out at around the same time, but I think the Dante movie has the edge; it's live action, for a start, and the special effects used to animate the soldiers are remarkable.

The film goes for a light action-adventure template with plenty of laughs thrown into the mix along the way. Like GREMLINS, there's a lot of small-scale stuff going on here, like fireworks being used as weapons and characters encountering the dangers of garbage disposal units. It's a kid's film, with child actors in the lead roles, but one of those ones that adults are sure to enjoy too.

Cast-wise, we're handed decent turns from Gregory Smith (before he won popular attention with EVERWOOD) and Kirsten Dunst (just before she graduated to adult roles in SPIDER-MAN). Elsewhere, we get Denis Leary chewing the scenery as the slimy corporate villain, and Dante lucky charm Dick Miller as an unlucky delivery driver. Best of all are the voice actors hired for the soldiers; they're led by Tommy Lee Jones but boast plenty of veteran talent, including Ernest Borgnine and Frank Langella. Overall, Dante gets the tone just right, leaving this a highly enjoyable family adventure. 6.9/10