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This is exactly Gil Mars' (Denis Leary) point and, as head of conglomerate Globotech, his view carries weight. Under this irresistible impetus, toy designer's Irwin Wayfair (David Cross) and Larry Benson (Jay Mohr) set out to define the future. In effect they're playing God, creating a world separated into two factions; "The Commando Elite" and "The Gorgonites". Now as everyone knows, you can't impersonate a deity without paying a pretty hefty price, yet that's only half the story. Small Soldiers actually spends most of its running time dwelling on the concepts of intelligence, free will and the nature of warfare. That is, when Stan Winston's puppets aren't break-dancing through an orgy of improvised violence.
This aspect, a very nearly continuous stream of barbaric acts, dominates Small Soldiers at the superficial level. Acts of torture and mutilation are carried out without a second glance; on humans they would be condemned, with toys it's merely sick humour. So outrageous does the carnage become that it starts to transmit a wholly different message, one that makes efforts to avoid glorifying armed conflict. Joe Dante makes the film subversive by upsetting stereotypes, portraying the soldiers not as heroes but instead as tunnel-visioned lunatics. Spurred on by mindless clichés, stock phrases jumbled together, Major Chip Hazard's (Tommy Lee Jones) troops construct weapons of huge destructive capability. That their enemy is largely peaceful matters not at all. So while Small Soldiers is all bangs and flashes, its intentions become clear when the fighting has ceased.
On a different level, that of the adults in the audience, there is much to enjoy. For a start, Denise Chamian's casting is superb, bringing in actors from The Dirty Dozen and This Is Spinal Tap to provide voices for the animated stars. It's amazing to discover how evocative a few words can be, springing memories of the past. In tandem, Small Soldiers very knowingly references many well-known movies, such as Patton and Apocalypse Now. These homages are integrated with such subtlety that you can't help but appreciate their inclusion. Deeper within the script there are lines of jet-black, fleeting jokes only partly caught; if they fly above the head's of children, that's because they're meant to. The kids have more than enough to keep them occupied.
Indeed, in Small Soldiers it's definitely the little things that count, the small, crafted details strewn about to catch your eye. Surprises lurk in the corners of the screen, shyly hiding from your gaze like, well, Gorgonites. The problem is that Dante's direction lacks a unifying glue, an adhesive strong enough to keep the characters and their scenes together; the effect being that one's sense of wonder remains intermittently stimulated, even while the film constantly amazes. The cast members can certainly take part of the blame for this malaise, their wooden acting skills barely a match for the plastic co-stars. In fact Globotech's super-intelligent toys feel more at ease, so seamlessly does their animation patch into the real world. Their only flaw is a weird style of movement, smooth yet jumpy, unsettling to watch.
More positively, the makers go a lot further with their idea than you'd ever think possible. From a comfortable start the action evolves into a nightmare scenario, paralleling the learning capability of the toy's computer chips. This gradual escalation makes a lot of sense given the parameters defined by Small Soldiers. Even better, while the script contains themes common to youth-orientated films, it avoids becoming preachy by weaving their tenets into the fiction's fabric. The catch is that any kid smart enough to pick up on these ethical lessons, by separating them from the mayhem, will probably want to undermine their monochrome simplicity. Still the movie, scored by Jerry Goldsmith in a mood for reprising the classics, is great fun for all ages.
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