Small Soldiers
I found this movie disappointing--it didn't live up to the
potential shown in the trailers. The special effects were excellent--the toys always
looked like toys (never looking cartoony like the space monkey in Lost in Space).
Andre declined to see this one, commenting "you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming". Gameboy
was gung ho to see it, but by midway through had already announced it was "only so-so".
The theater was full of small fry, which was unfortunate, since the initial scenes
contained unnecessarily foul language. There were lots of in-jokes for the adults (which
of course the kids did not get). There are references to Patton and
Frankenstein, among others. Although there was lots of violence, the successful
attacks are against the plastic action figures.
Attacks against the humans are played for laughs. All in all, it wasn't really any more
scary than Toy Story.
Kirsten Duntz was refreshing as a liberated pre-teen (she wields a mean baton
against the killer Barbies--excuse me "Gwendies". The dolls call it "the baton
death march"--the worst pun of the entire movie). The cast of This is Spinal
Tap did great at creating memorable voices for the Gorgonites. The "surviving cast"
of The Dirty Dozen were forgettable as the voices of the Commandos (but Tommy Lee
Jones really clicked as Major Chip Hazard).
The Gorgonites were interesting and sympathetic (and the real stars of the movie),
but we're never given a really good look at any except their leader, Archer. We get only a slightly
better look at the Commandos, which is just as well since all except their leader, Major Chip
Hazard, have distorted toothy grins that are vaguely disturbing. The
Gorgonite replicas will definitely be the spin-off product of choice.
As a former computer graphics guru, it was a treat for me to see the realistic
portrayal of stereolithography used to generate the toy prototypes.