"It's... Only a ... flesh wound...Sir." immediately dies
The 90s as much I have experienced it was a violent time for movies, every action movie that was coming to the market was loud, obscenely loud even if it didn't start that way. So I admit I was kind of hesitant about Small Soldiers at first, I feared it would be just another edgy violent movie with children who would get absolutely brutally blown to bits for laughs and it might have been but according to Wikipedia, while Joe Dante was going to make a edgy violent film he was told to make it more kid-friendly after the shoot was complete, which resulted in many severe changes to the tone as well as keeping many of the action scenes intact, creating a film that was sort-of a bit of both....and it works!
If you have not seen it before, simply put: "a toy company makes toys with military chips inside them and intends to sell them to the market, a kid gets a few early models and they come to life and they want to killllll" that's basically all you need to know.
I loved it. One of the best action-comedy movies I have ever seen, it's so well realized that every little thing you see on the screen has a purpose, the characters are at first glance stinking stereotypes of stories we have seen before but before long you actually seem them doing things that you wouldn't have expected the filmmakers to go to the length to do. Kristen Dunst beating Barbie dolls with a stick and actually enjoying it blew my mind because I thought she was gonna be another Mary Jane/damsel in distress character. The performances are all funny but the real stars of the show, the real comedy, comes from the action figures and the mythology that this movie built for them.
On one side we have Commando Elites, toys reflecting military and conquering nature, ruthless, calculated and violent and on the other side we have the Gorgonites, a peaceful race of aliens that are just trying to find their home. As the Gorgonite leader says multiple times, "They are programmed to lose." Seeing these toys acting and believing in their mythologies, the commandoes belting out one cliched military quote after an other as the toys march to the "enemy's stronghold" is just so much fun
The movie also has amazing music, most of it from using classic compositions like Rise of the Valkyries or Zarathustra and it all makes the threat seem more serious even if it is ridiculous, all that and some really great pop culture songs give Small Soldiers a tone of good-natured fun seriousness. It knows it's stupid, the plot is stupid but it completely head over heels commits to that and that's what I find so rare in films these days and so compelling in this one.
The action scenes are well-directed, a new threat coming at every turn causing the characters to improvise does a lot of good in making the film engaging and fun. I loved whenever the toys said something or did something because of how serious they are about it and it made me laugh a lot
To be honest, I wasn't sure at the start if it was gonna be something special or just another "blow everything up" 90's action movie but with really fun direction, set pieces, characters, this movie ends up having a lot of charm, action and heart. By the third act, I was giggling and saying "you're just a dumb toy, why are you doing that?!" Hahah
Overral: 8/10 an amazing surprise and a genuinely good film, while it may not be as serious as a cinematic work by some auteur direction, Small Soldiers does a lot that makes movies worth watching in the first place: it's fun and you leave it feeling awesome
