Small Soldiers

[EUOL]

I guess I have to go against the flow and declare that I really didn't like the movie.  I thought it was terrible, but maybe I saw it on a bad day.

[wolverine_men]

I saw the movie only because Kirsten Dunst was in it.

[Fellfrosch]

I, rest assured that I thought it was terrible. I'm just saying that Phil Hartman and Kirsten Dunst were in it, and therefore I watched it.

[House of Mustard]

I saw it a couple of years ago, and thought it was somewhat disturbing.  There's something about dismemberment that bothers me (I know they were only toys, but they were characters).  I don't like dark comedy generally, and this was a little too dark for me.

[wolverine_men]

It wasn't a comedy.

[Fellfrosch]

Well, it was partly a comedy. The problem is that it tried to be both comedy and industrial commentary at the same time, and it didn't work.

[stacer]

The problem is that it tried to be both comedy and industrial commentary at the same time, and it didn't work.

Sounds like a remake of Toys (1992, Robin Williams and Joan Cusack).

Well, and adding the little live soldiers. That's what they were, right? I've never actually seen the movie.

[Fellfrosch]

Toys didn't really work either, but at least it had some clever ideas and some effective visual image. And a cool Tori Amos song.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

It's definitely not another version of Toys. It has more roots in classic 50s horror than it did in movies like Toys. The only things they really share is that they both have toys (though only one toy in Toys was alive) and they both have an anti-war theme. The plots and approaches are very different.

The plot is this:
Researchers are creating educational toys that can "learn." THe toys are action figures that look like monsters.
Then their funding is cut when the company is bought by a military research coorporation expanding into toys: and they're ordered to make military toys, so the monsters become the "bad guys" to the soldier actioin figures, which they try to still market using AI they steal from the military R&D departments
So the new soldier action figures come to life with the AI the military developed, making them want to search and destroy, while the "monsters" retain their educational preogatives (they're the good guys of the film).
The rest just follows from that.

I though it was reasonably clever, though not exceedingly well done. It was fun, just not great.

[wolverine_men]

Maybe they should've let the monsters act like monsters. Using them as heroes might've put off some ppl.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I don't think that's even close to an accurate assessment.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

The monsters were programed to lose. So they wouldn't try to fight back since they were programed to lose. So in the end they turned to violence and lived to sail in a gigantic wooden ship. And so the moral of that story is, if you're bad to your toys they'll be bad to you.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

that's a much better assessment  

[Fellfrosch]

In that it makes no sense and still isn't accurate. That's why it works for this movie.