ViewGuide

Created Sep 19, 2017 10:02PM PST • Edited Sep 26, 2017 11:42PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Small Soldiers looms large two decades after its premier. Spielberg inspired and produced, Joe Dante’s masterpiece is classic Hollywood fantasy, with a great cast featuring Frank Langella & Tommy Lee Jones.

   The classic Hollywood part includes being left-wing and anti-American. The villains are the Commando Elite, voiced by none other than Tommy Lee Jones as Chip Hazard, George Kennedy as Brick Bazooka, Jim Brown as Butch Meathook, Ernest Borgnine as Kip Killigan, Clint Walker as Nick Nitro, and Bruce Dern as Link Static, communication expert. Basically that’s Mr. America and several of The Dirty Dozen.

   The heroes are the pacific Gorgonites, a group not out of place at Burning Man. Love ’em, just saying.

   Mostly it’s a clever satire of the military-industrial-toy complex, pre iPhone. Its takedown of consumer culture in the electronics age is best captured in the famous Gwendy Dolls Attack scene, replete with swarms of teen fembots looking for dates, with Zeppelin’s Communication Breakdown as the soundtrack.

   Dante’s big movie was ahead of its time in ‘98, anticipating drones and natural-language learning-bots, as toys. It’s still immensely charming, full of indelible characters, stock but rendered in a new way, as robots.

   Add it up and this blockbuster ain’t small, even today. It’s huge, worth rescreening every five years or so.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman, Dennis Leary, Frank Langella, Tommy Lee Jones & macho crewmen

   Live Action

   • Gregory Smith underwhelms as an overwhelmed boy.
   • Kevin Dunn fumes as his perfectly Progressive father, with Ann Magnuson as the Mom.
   • Kirsten Dunst charms as a dream girl with a major doll problem.
   • Phil Hartman plays her father, Hartman’s last major role before his coke-crazed wife killed him. The film is dedicated to his memory. Wendy Schaal plays the Mom, & Jacob Smith the kid brother.
   • Denis Leary chews scenery as a cutthroat magnate
   • Jay Mohr & David Cross play two of his key men, Mohr the creator of the Commando Elite and Cross the creator of the Gorgonites.
   • Robert Picardo perks up any cast.
   • Rance Howard is always worth calling out for his small but distinctive contribution.

   Gorgonites

   • Frank Langella mellifluously voices Archer, leader of the heroic Gorgonites.
   • Christopher Guest voices Slamfist & Scratch-It.
   • Michael McKean voices Insaniac & Troglokhan.
   • Harry Shearer voices Punch-It.

   Commando Elite

   • Tommy Lee Jones voices Chip Hazard, leader of the evil Commando Elite.
   • George Kennedy (Dirty Dozen star) voices Brick Bazooka, artillery expert.
   • Jim Brown (Dirty Dozen star) voices Butch Meathook, the sniper.
   • Ernest Borgnine (Dirty Dozen star) voices Kip Killigan, covert ops expert.
   • Clint Walker (Dirty Dozen star) voices Nick Nitro, demolition expert.
   • Bruce Dern voices Link Static, communication expert. Dern replaced Dirty Dozen star Richard Jaeckel, who died before shooting began

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Joe Dante’s Small Soldiers is a perfect film. No object gets introduced that doesn’t later get used.

    Plus, it remains immensely charming, a live-action Toy Story, sorta. The first kiss comes at the hour:15 mark, with the second at an hour:40.

    That said, Small Soldiers is a classic left-wing fairy tale, with the American military cast as villains who seek to exterminate peaceful non-Americans. Such blood libeling from Hollywood has been par for the course for so long that it almost escapes notice. But it shouldn’t.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    • War (Bone Thugs-n-Harmony with Henry Rollins, Tom Morello and Flea)
    • Another One Bites the Dust (Queen, Wyclef Jean, Pras, Free & Canibus)
    • Love Is a Battlefield (Pat Benatar, Queen Latifah & DJ Kay Gee)
    • Rock and Roll (Part 2) (Gary Glitter & Dutch)
    • My City Was Gone (The Pretenders, Kool Keith & Butcher Brothers)
    • Surrender (Cheap Trick & Rich Costey)
    • Tom Sawyer (Rush & DJ Z-Trip)
    • War (Edwin Starr)
    • Communication Breakdown – Led Zeppelin
    • Wannabe – Spice Girls

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Filmed at Universal City Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, The city of Orange, Thousand Oaks, Yosemite.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Fierce 2.4

19. Rudeness Salty 1.9

21. Reality

    Supernatural 3.9

22. Circumstantial Supernatural 3.5

23. Biological Fantasy 4.1

24. Physical Supernatural 4.0