Small Soldiers
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DVD details
Actor: Alexandra Wilson, David Cross (II), Denis Leary, Gregory Smith, Jay MohrBrand: Paramount
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Live, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-12-08
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Dreamworks Video
DVD Reviews of Small Soldiers
DVD Review: "I love the smell of polyurethane in the morning."
Summary: 4 Stars
Cripes, I forgot just how very neat and subversive this movie is. SMALL SOLDIERS is rated PG-13 and, indeedy, the surprising level of violence doesn't really lend itself to viewing from kids under, say, eight or nine years. Released a few years after Toy Story (10th Anniversary Edition), SMALL SOLDIERS' accomplishments in the f/x department, in comparison, probably don't come off as so jaw-dropping impressive. But Stan Winston and his crew did scrounge up some fairly awesome animatronic designs which, when meshed with the seamless CG work, pay off huge dividends. It's a really fun film, although, again, PG-13. Some of the things the bad guy toys get up to aren't really age appropriate for the younger ones.
The premise is irresistible, about a not-yet-released line of action figures - sorted out in two different groups, the Gorgonites and the Commando Elite - which ends up in the hands of troubled teen Alan Abernathy, whose dad runs a modest toy shop called The Inner Child. The toys, created by a subsidiary of a defense contracting conglomerate, happen to be powered by experimental super microchips which allow them not only to interact, but to also learn and adapt. Sentient toys. To make it even more fun, SMALL SOLDIERS then skewers that sense of good ol' American jingoism and our infatuation with G.I. Joe, and it achieves this by introducing a twist.
The murderous Commando Elite, ramrodded by gung-ho, buzz cut sporting Major Chip Hazard (voiced by Tommy Lee Jones, great again), are clearly the villains here and they promptly begin hunting down the Gorgonites (they call them "Gorgonite Scum"). And, as we learn, they're only too eager to frag the Gorgonites' human friends ("Civilian, declare your allegiance!"). The rag-tag bunch of Gorgonites are monstrous looking but are gentle and only long to seek their way home. They're led by the thoughtful Archer who, as voiced sympathetically by Frank Langella, quickly got me on his side.
The Commando Elite is the featured line of toys, with the Gorgonites heaped along to serve as enemy fodder. As such, the Gorgonites are programmed to lose and, so, when the kid Alan goes looking for them after his dad's toy shop gets vandalized, Archer gravely declares: "My Gorgonite brothers are doing what the Gorgonites do best. They are hiding." That's the only way they believe they can survive.
As kind of an encore to Gremlins (Special Edition), director Joe Dante ends up supremely trashing a suburban neighborhood in somewhere, Middle America. He's always had a knack for cartoon anarchy, and he serves up ridiculous mayhem in this one. He even gets around to spoofing scenes from PATTON and APOCALYPSE NOW. I loved the action, and there are times when you'll actually believe that the demented Commando Elite can do grievous bodily harm to humans. Particularly cool and a little creepy are the awesomely grotesque Gwendy dolls, having received the Frankenstein treatment from Major Chip Hazard and deployed to ambush the dolls' owner, a girl who happens to be Alan's next door neighbor and current crush. But since that girl is feisty Kirsten Dunst, she's soon back on her feet.
There's the obvious humor which kids all over should get a kick out of. And then there's the funny stuff which may go over their heads: the broadsides against the military, the pop culture references, the juxtaposing of play versus violence. When the Commando Elite engage in suburban warfare, they even go so far as to blast Alan Abernathy's home with torture music, which turns out to be the Spice Girls. But, hopefully (as I get my preach on), the kids can pick up on one theme that never really gets old: the one about not judging a book by its cover and about beauty being only skin deep and is in the eye of the beholder, and other similar maxims.
Of the live action performances, the one standout for me is Kirsten Dunst, her talent friggin' immense even back then. She plays her character as so sunny and irrepressible that she overwhelms whatshisname, the kid who plays the central character Alan. Jay Mohr, David Cross, and Denis Leary are okay, but their best stuff is in the DVD's Bloopers reel.
The real draw are the action figures. Stan Winston and his animatronics crew did a job and a half with the designs, with ILM then integrating the CG to arrive at this place where intelligent toys are set realistically in place and believably, fluidly interact with live actors. Visually, my favorite is probably Ocula, a Gorgonite who in essence is a huge eyeball on three legs.
Big names in the voice casting. To liven up that military spoofing even further, some of the surviving cast from The Dirty Dozen (Two-Disc Special Edition) are employed as voices of the Commando Elite (but for Major Chip Hazard). Meanwhile, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, and Michael McKean have a This Is Spinal Tap (Special Edition) reunion and handle the voices of the Gorgonites (except Archer, of course). Another cool bit of casting has Christina Ricci and Sarah Michelle Gellar as the Gwendy dolls ("Watch out, girls! Hissy fit!").
This DVD includes these special features: the movie trailer; the 11-minute Behind the Scenes featurette which goes into good detail about the film's CG/animatronics special effects; 5 minutes of funny Bloopers; 10 Deleted Scenes (totaling around 6 minutes), the last 3 of which feature special effects (the fourth scene is worth watching for the Gorgonites' reaction when they do an Internet search on "Gorgon"); Cast & Crew film bios; 8 pages of Production Notes; and a 2-minute sneak peek at the PlayStation video game.
SMALL SOLDIERS happens to be Phil Hartman's final film role, and he goes out doing his trademark unctuous shtick. He lands one of the best lines in the film, I thought, except that we only get to hear it in one of the deleted scenes: Trying to placate the attacking Commando Elite, his smarmy character informs them: "We're not so different, you and I. I've been accused of being plastic all my life."
Description of Small Soldiers
15-year-old Alan Abernathy, the son of a toy store owner, tries out some new action figures: The Commando Elite vs. The Gorgonites. But three months ago, a toy company believes it is onto something when it employs the latest government military technology in a series of action figures, enabling them to talk. They underestimate the power of the special micro chips they've employed, however, as the two opposing sides of the toy line start thinking for themselves and engaging in real combat! The Commando Elite vow to wipe out the Gorgonites in a suburban neighborhood. Alan, his neighbor Christy Fimple, (on whom he has a massive crush) with the help of the kind Gorgonites, must protect his home and family from the Commandos.Here's the pitch: "It's like Toy Story but these toys that come to life really kick butt!" That's essentially it for this breezy popcorn flick. In a very smart first 10 minutes, new toy-company owner Denis Leary tells his crew he wants toys "that play back." Hence the small soldiers land in Anytown, U.S.A., and the loner kid Alan (Gregory Smith) opens them up before they are supposed to be on the shelves. Those military-grade chips sure make them smart and give the toys plenty of pithy retorts to boot. Plenty of violence, er, action, most of it fun enough. The vocal talents, including Tommy Lee Jones, Frank Langella, and cast members of The Dirty Dozen are inspired characters, the humans less so. With Gremlins director Joe Dante at the helm, it plays like a sequel to that '80s fantasy. Amazing visual effects, of course. --Doug Thomas
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