Small Soldiers (1998) Yay or Nay?

This is one of the earliest movies I got obsessed with as a kid. It was mostly because of the toy line that they hyped up. In hindsight it was a bizarre move considering that Gremlins which was a more successful film by Joe Dante was never this targeted for kids. The movie itself was taking advantage of the Toy Story craze since that movie was released three years earlier.

The film has an identity crisis. The film definitely has some dark of themes, but is too afraid to go all out one way or another. Either a kids film or an adult film so you end up with this weird in between. Critics at the time gave it mixed reviews and it's deserved.

The positives are the design for the toys themselves and some of the action scenes especially the climax are a lot of fun. The movie gets hampered by a standard plot and a rather unlikeable lead. The actors really try to make something out of this thing and people like David Cross are clearly putting in 100%. It just never fully clicks.

For nostalgia reasons I'll always like the movie, but for anyone older or younger, I can understand if you don't get much out of it.

Submitted June 02, 2023 at 04:58AM by Any-Satisfaction-770 https://ift.tt/gABZK65