This movie will end the triad of “dive into childhood nostalgia” – just a last gem to unlock a core memory from way back when; so let’s jump back to 1998 with Small Soldiers by Joe Dante, another movie about toys coming to life.
Instead of a magical cupboard, this time it is about a military chip being misused by a high-tech conglomerate to produce advanced toys. I know, what could go wrong? Besides, it’s not like we live in a society that has easy access to a decently advanced A.I. and we are misusing it ourselves, right? Looking at you ChatGPT (please don’t kill me when the A.I. revolution hits and Skynet starts mass producing robots). Anyways, back to the movie.
The plot is nothing special if you are old enough to recall it. Corporate greed puts military chips in toys, there are good alien-like toys who want to learn and bad soldier toys who want to destroy them, things get out of control, humans fry the chips with an EMP and money makes everything better. Wait a minute, does the ending truly hint towards the fact that everything can be resolved by throwing cash at any type of issue? Might have to rethink that one. Second ‘anyways’ in this brief article – back to the morals I guess.
The movie does in a way conceal a cautionary message inferring the problems a multimillion-dollar organization that controls every economic field could bring upon the world. The ending, although ironic and not necessarily understood by children who are there for toys coming to life, has something to say. Furthermore, the fact that the company is concerned more with the militaristic value of the toys at the end of the movie rather than the damage they have done is also not to be neglected.
By the way, this movie is a good example of how to use ‘oldies’ music for good affect in action scenes; by not taking itself too seriously, the choice of using rock and pop classics such as War by Edwin Starr, Wannabe by Spice Girls and Communication breakdown by Led Zeppelin fits with the narrative.
I will say that Small Soldiers did not age superbly, but it is still a part of the childhood of a generation and as such it deserves a minimum of consideration.
I would give this movie a 6 out of 10 “they’re only toys”.