SMALL SOLDIERS

Joe Dante, dir. USA: Universal Pictures, DreamWorks SKG (prod.) / DreamWorks Distribution L.L.C. / Red Feather (dist.), 1998. Ted Elliott, Zak Penn, Adam Rifkin, Terry Rossio, Gavin Scott, script. Stan Winston Studio / Industrial Light & Magic, SpFx. Featured Players: Gregory Smith, Kirsten Dunst, Jay Mohr, Phil Hartman, Kevin Dunn, David Cross, Irwin Wayfair, Ann Magnuson, Wendy Schaal, Denis Leary. Voices: Tommy Lee Jones, Frank Langella, Dick Miller, Robert Picardo, Bruce Dern, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Christopher Guest, George Kennedy, Michael McKean, Christina Ricci, Harry Shearer.

Basically the Disney/Pixar TOY STORY combined with Dante's GREMLINS movies (q.v., this Category), with the destructive magical creatures of the GREMLINS FILMS replaced by destructive cybernetic-chip controlled soldiers. The soldiers convert "Gwendy" dolls into allies—Barbi as commando killer—in a conversion process sending up the creation of the monster in the 1931 James Whale FRANKENSTEIN and 1935 BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, plus allusions to METROPOLIS and BLADE RUNNER (q.v.). The good and peaceful Gorgonites are also cybernetic toys and eventually resist the Small Soldiers, so the film comes across as fairly open-minded on technology and on violence as a last resort; SMALL SOLDIERS condemns, however, technophilia, gung-ho militarism, and contempt for simplicity.