Small Soldiers (1998)

Small Soldiers was one of Dreamworks’ initial batch of releases and didn’t fare half as well as the studio had hoped. The film has an intriguing idea which has been given treatment that is perhaps a little too kiddie oriented and needed to be more in the realm of the amazing Robocop. Here the idea is that due to a malicious error a certain series of toys are equipped with a computer chip that was designed for military use.

The toys acquire artificial intelligence, can reason and come fully equipped with lethal weapons and explosives. A little bit like Toy Story except that these toys interact with humans and have a tendency of turning rather nasty. The film reminds one of Dante’s earlier successes Gremlins and shares quite a few similarities. The special effects involving the toys are seamless and very cleverly done yet somehow the whole exercise falls into a territory that will have kids complaining that the film was too adult and the adults will certainly be moaning that the film was a great idea ruined by somewhat cutesy, kiddie handling.

At the end of the day, the film doesn’t manage to draw the viewer into its fantasy world and the entire film appears contrived. It’s an ok if pretty unexciting and charmless affair. The best scene is one where Christina Ricci and Buffy bitch it up as lethal Barbie doll types in a fierce attack on our hapless heroes. It’s a riotous scene and one wishes much more of the movie had a similar cutting edge which it sadly doesn’t. A rather mediocre, less than inspired effort which also seems to smack of the “wholesomeness” associated with anything that has anything to do with Steven Spielberg.