Thoughts on Small Soldiers

 

via Giphy/Courtesy DreamWorks/NBCUniversal

"Soldiers, no poor sap ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by being all that he can be. Damn the torpedoes, or give me death! Eternal vigilance is the price of duty. And, to the victors go the spoils. So remember: you are the best of the best of the few and the proud. So ask not what your country can do for you, only regret that you have but one life to live! The war against the Gorgonites will be won! Commando Elite, let the first shot be fired! Search out the Gorgonites and frag 'em all!"

Yet again, Thoughts On in the purest sense!

1. "Alright!" I thought. "They wasted no time getting the title Small Soldiers on screen. And look, there's Denis Leary! This baby's gonna move!"

2. I like to think that I have a reasonable attention span, but nine minutes of setup? Franko in 1998 was glad he didn't see Small Soldiers because it would have scared him (remember, I had a fear of the Child's Play movies). Franko in 2022 was glad I didn't see Small Soldiers in 1998 because it would have tried my patience.

3. Okay, so we've got GloboTech Industries' expanding portfolio including the Heartland Toy Company. Irwin (David Cross) and Larry (Jay Mohr) are apparently the only people who haven't been fired by Gil Mars (Leary). As will become common throughout Small Soldiers, there's a fine idea -- Mars wants toys that actually live up to the promises made by commercials -- but the execution is lacking.

4. Mars' maverick ("I'm talkin' about toys that are so smart, when kids play with 'em, they play back.") and foolish qualities ("Forget about this batteries not included crap. We'll stick in a lifetime Globotech lithium cell. Keep these things running forever. That'll piss off the guys at Eveready.") would come across better with a more colorful actor. Was Kurt Russell not available?

5. Irwin and Larry are given only three months for the Commando Elite and Gorgonite toys to be market ready. In the movie, this is possible because Larry obtains many powerful microprocessors. Nowadays, you could probably say the dolls were ready thanks to corrupted A.I. Actually, wasn't that the gimmick behind the 2019 version of Child's Play?

6. Let's talk billing! In order, it's Kirsten Dunst, Gregory Smith, Mohr, Phil Hartman, Kevin Dunn, Cross, Ann Magnuson, Dick Miller, Wendy Schaal, Robert Picardo and Jacob Smith. Leary gets "and" billing, followed by Frank Langella getting billed "as the voice of 'Archer'" and Tommy Lee Jones getting "and ... as the voice of 'Chip Hazard.'" Honestly, I'd put Tommy and Frank first, then Gregory, then maybe keep things the way they are.

7. "Pretty soon, everything in the world is gonna be owned by one giant corporation. Then it's goodbye, microbreweries." Well, you sure were wrong there, Joe (Miller)!

8. Researching Small Soldiers reminded me of how I know Gregory Smith. He played Sport in Harriet the Spy! "Smith lacks the edge or charism one associates with a wild child, and casting the considerably taller Kirsten Dunst as his budding girlfriend diminishes him further," Leonard Klady wrote.

9. Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith) is son of Stuart (Dunn), owner of the unpopular toy store, "The Inner Child." Dialogue throughout Small Soldiers has the Abernathies as relatively new in town and Stuart's pro-learning, anti-junk mentality being his own (and possibly as recent as his self-help kick), not something he's continuing out of respect for how The Inner Child has operated in the past.

10. It is pretty cool when Hazard and Archer, alone together, consider one another. According to director Joe Dante, the doll effects were one-third puppetry and two-thirds CGI. Dunn claimed it was all puppetry.

11. Time for another 10 minutes of setup. Alan likes Christy (Dunst), who's zestier than the usual girls next door in these types of movies. I'm not sure which of the screenwriters, Gavin Scott, Adam Rifkin, Ted Elliott and/or Terry Rossio, was responsibile, but I appreciate it. Alan has a strained relationship with Stuart and his mom, Irene (Magnuson). "See, we're totally not ripping off Gremlins! Billy liked his parents, remember?"

12. God bless Phil Hartman, whose je ne sais quoi is utilized immediately. "Hi, sweetie. ... Al here was just telling me ..." "(interrupts) Ed." "(the slightest of beats, then) Was just telling me that the angle of the Earth's tilt on its axis, relative to the geocentric orbit of the transmission satellite, restricts the placement (of a dish for satellite TV) for optimum reception." "Uh, yeah." It's all in the delivery and characterization.

13. Another dated attitude, this one from Stuart, who claims that Phil Fimple's excess technology equipment makes the vicinity "a cancer dome."

14. Alan discovers that he's brought Archer home. Archer's a lot more willing to make a friend than Alan is. Actually, out of all of the characters seen so far, Archer is easily the most likeable. He's not really adorable, just likeable. Back at the toy store, Chip assembles his cohorts, mostly voiced by cast members from The Dirty Dozen (and Bruce Dern). How do you like that? A Pixarish kind of casting gimmick before the differences between Pixar and DreamWorks' approaches to voice casting became well-known.

15. The Inner Child (God, that name!) is trashed, which is the perfect opportunity for Alan and Christy to get to make friends as she helps him clean up. They both hate Family of Five, a show with unrealistically nice parents. He reveals liking The X-Files and they're both Led Zeppelin fans. The mood is doubly ruined by Stuart once again getting mad at Alan (over a not well-enough fixed wooden ship) and Christy leaving with her older, jock boyfriend. Of the humans, Alan is the one you can almost root for, but it isn't set in stone yet.

16. I remember the sequence where Brick Bazooka (voice of George Kennedy) attempts to scale Alan's bike as it's in motion, and getting attacked by a dog, making the rounds when Small Soldiers was being promoted in the summer of 1998. I didn't expect that it would end with Bazooka in pieces, the setup to the even better destruction of Nick Nitro (voice of Clint Walker) ... via the Abernathies' garbage disposal, no less.

17. Blah blah, the corporate stuff interrupts the action. Well, at least there's Cheri Oteri (a helpline operator) and eventually Robert Picardo (who reveals to Irwin and Larry how to defeat the Commando Elite).

18. Alan saves Archer from getting disposed of, gets his hand sliced, defeats Nick Nitro and has yet another fight with his parents. Archer reveals that his fellow Gorgonites are alive, while the Commando Elite set up shop in a garage. "Dibs on the chainsaw."

19. It's time to meet the other Gorgonites, voiced by Jim Cummings, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. They have some fun, like watching schlock sci-fi on Alan's TV, but they don't have as much personality as the Gremlins did. The Commando Elite aren't really capturing my attention either.

20. Does Small Soldiers have a reason for existing? Joe Dante already did this story better with Gremlins. Later in 1998, we'll have Bride of Chucky, which set up the Child's Play franchise's second and third acts. I'll keep giving commentary on the rest of the movie, but I feel like my mind's pretty well made up.

21. The Commando Elite take over the Fimple house, and how about that moment where they "Pile on the kid!"? Several reviewers questioned if Soldiers was appropriate for younger viewers. Like I've mentioned, I was 9 going on 10 at the time and am pretty sure I would have gotten scared. Roger Ebert: "The problems is with the commandos ... They are truly evil, and they throw off the movie's moral balance."

22. Let's break for Joe Dante's point of view. He's said that Small Soldiers was intended as "an edgy movie for teenagers." Once the movie received sponsor tie-ins, "the new mandate was to soften it up as a kiddie movie." Among the sponsors was Burger King, although I'm confused why they would "(salute) Small Soldiers with the new Rodeo Burger." I remember the controversy prior to Soldiers' release, that it might be too violent for family audiences -- Hartman's own violent death didn't help matters -- and that sponsors were nervous about being tied to a potential failure. I'm wondering if anyone at McDonalds who had survived the Batman Returns Happy Meal fiasco laughed at BK's misfortune or felt sympathy pains.

23. Phil, Marion, Timmy and Christy are fine, it's the Gwendy dolls (voices of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Christina Ricci) that are mutilated. Christy's collection of Gwendys was established in her first scene, but the idea of them becoming reinforcements for the Commando Elite feels like it could have been set up better. "RnR, sir?" "Uh, request a three-day pass, sir." 

24. Activating the Gwendys as commandos requires the dolls to lose their hair and clothing. It seems to me that that decision was more for the sake of striking visuals. 

Courtesy DreamWorks/NBCUniversal

It's an interesting contrast to Gremlins, where the accessories helped a lot of the little buggers stand out.

Courtesy Warner Bros.

Janet Maslin agrees with me, writing that dolls like the Gwendys "are always funnier with their clothes on."

25. Eww to Brad (Jonathan Bouck) preparing phony reasons for him to come in after Christy already ended the date. Not surprisingly, he's not the hero. In fact, he ends up losing his jeans, whose legs briefly catch fire. There's gonna be a lot of fires in the next half-hour.

26. "You can't make an evisceratingly dark satire about the bloodlust (that's a result of "our cultural deification of stoic militarism") without lots of violence," Nathan Rabin wrote. "Yet the idea that bloodshed is acceptable as long as the good guys are doing is feels disconcertingly close to the rah-rah military boosterism Small Soldiers otherwise satires so adroitly." Owen Gleiberman, meanwhile, noted how as the movie went on, the Commando Elite went from using unique weapons like corncob holders to "just (blasting) away with ordinary gunfire. That's a sure sign the movie itself is out of ammo."

27. As hamfisted as Small Soldiers's political message seems to be -- doves before hawks, people! -- it is a pretty badass moment when Hazard and company emerge from the garage with their makeshift vehicles. Naturally, "War" plays.

28. There's still a half-hour to go, so of course, Alan and Christy didn't actually defeat all of the Commando Elite. Plus, we still need to utilize that solution revealed to Irwin and Larry, an electromagnetic pulse blast.

29. I'll applaud Jay Mohr getting punched under any circumstances, but I question Stuart getting to lay one on Larry. If anyone in this movie was entitled to do so, it's Irwin. Stuart did have the reason of being mad that "Your toys nearly killed my son!"

30. Some more first class Hartmaning begins at 82:30. "Hi. I'm Phil Fimple. I'm here to negotiate the surrender of the, uh, Gorgonzolas. Now, here's our proposal: Take 'em! I mean, switch 'em off, take 'em apart, steal their batteries, whatever it is you people do ..."

31. Larry realizes that as far as the Commando Elite is concerned, they face 16 enemies: "Seven Gorgonites and nine people." 

32. Hello there, Belinda Balaski! And Rance Howard and Jackie Joseph!

33. The attack on the Abernathy house includes "Wannabe" used for psychological warfare (a gag that might have played better had Geri still been in the Spice Girls when Small Soldiers was released) and Irene holding her own with a tennis racket. Lynn Peltzer would be proud!

34. Not gonna lie, it's satisfying as hell to watch Hazard get his by electrocution. "You stupid toy!" This followed by Christy taking out many of the Commando Elite and Gwendys with a riding mower and, of course, the EMP.

35. Excellent use of the rule of three, with Mars successfully bribing Joe, Phil and Stuart & Irene. I'm less fond of the reveal that Mars wants the Commando Elite to be used in actual warfare.

36. Aww to Alan setting Archer and company free -- in that wooden boat that Stuart was so fond of -- so they can seek a home in the wild.

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "Nick Nitro's battery has run out, but his memory will keep going and going and going. His death will be avenged!"

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $54.7 million on a $40 million budget, Small Soldiers opened at No. 3 and ranked No. 42 for 1998.

-- Awards Watch: Gregory Smith struck out with both the Young Artist and YoungStar awards, losing to Miko Hughes in Mercury Rising and Jesse James in As Good as It Gets, respectively. Dunst lost the Young Artist award to a tie between Jena Malone in Stepmom and Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap.

-- Critic's Corner: "Here's one that had all the ingredients to be much better than it turned out," Keith Phipps wrote. Maslin felt the Gremlins movies "had the witty balance of mischief and horror that Small Soldiers strangely lacks." Rita Kempley observed that early elementary-age viewers "aren't going to notice the hypocrisy inherent in a movie built around the violent children's entertainment it pretends to condemn."

-- Hey, It's 1998!: "(As the Gorgonites sail away) I hope we don't hit an iceberg."

-- "(Christy destroys some Gwendys with a baton) I've always hated these things!"

-- Next: The Mask of Zorro. On deck: There's Something About Mary.