Review of Small Soldiers (1998) by Joe W — 09 Sep 2012

I've seen this about 11 times and I'm getting quite sick of it. I do enjoy it but it's not brilliant.

The biggest problem is the Gorgonites and how useless they are. All they do is hide. I know that they were programmed to hide, but c'mon. Also, when they do fight, they're stronger than the Commandos. The confrontation between Archer and Chip Hazard is very disappointing. They could've made the fight go on for a bit longer, say a good 3 maybe 5 minutes like most Hero- Villain fights. But no. This only had to last for 30 seconds.

The love story between Alan and Kristie is cliched as you can get filled with poor dialogue.

The CGI is okay. Sometimes it looks good, other times it looks poor, especially when there's a close up on either the Commandos or the Gorgonites. The worse example is the Archer/ Chip fights where Archer's mouth appears to be moving in vowels.

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel complained that the film was too violent for kids. Well, as Dennis Leary's character would say "We don't call it "violence", we call it "action". Kids love action." It's okay to show kids toys being blown up and torn to pieces as long as you don't show it happening to humans.

For me, the only violent part is when a Commando is firing nails into Alan's leg. Even as a kid, It thought that was a bit much.

I love the finale at the house and they're are some good laughs here and now.

It's decent enough and has a good idea.