Kids of the ‘90s certainly got more out of their movies! Where family films of the ‘80s had often been darkly whimsical with titles like,The Never Ending StoryandThe Dark Crystal, the ‘90s was all about action and technology — a trend far from exclusive to kids’ entertainment. It was the time ofsmart-mouth children like Kevin McCallister, big evil corporations and clunky gadgets. But whereJames Cameron’sTerminator 2: Judgment Dayquickly defined the action movie market and reminded everybody what a summer blockbuster really looks like, one director particularly adept at creating the edgy family movie vibe brought about the kids’ equivalent in the form ofSmall Soldiers, a movie full of entertainment value that actually prompted a bit of reflection.
Joe Dante’s filmography is an enviable selection of works that views real issues through a decidedly tongue-in-cheek lens that blends the sinister with the exciting, and always feels accessible to any viewer. Whether it’sGremlins,The Howling,PiranhaorThe Twilight Zone, Dante’s films aim to homage the greats, telling stories in a way that appreciates their predecessors in its most artful form through movies. So much so, that whenSmall Soldierslanded on Dante’s desk, he saw an opportunity to pay his respects to the burgeoning tech-heavy sci-fi style that the decade was all about.
Related:James Cameron Should Return ‘The Terminator’ to Its Horror Roots
A Tale of Redemption
Alan (Gregory Smith) is John Connor, but without the important destiny. A small unremarkable kid with brown curtained hair and clothes that are eight-sizes-too-big that were customary of the era, with a bad-boy background. He has a well-established distrusting relationship with his busy middle-class parents, owing to his propensity for petty indiscretions such as getting expelled and calling in phony bomb threats. But he’s a good kid who desperately wants to re-earn his folks’ trust and prove himself as capable and reliable. So when he works at his family’s toy store while his dad is out of town, he decides to pull a little stunt that will redeem his character.
You see, the toy store is a dud. It is awood-paneled fantasy straight out ofMiracle on 34th Street, stocked with train sets and model boats. As potential customers point out, “they never have anything good” as the humble mom-and-pop shop is way behind the times, ill-equipped to offer all the extreme radicalness that ‘90s kids want from their toys. But that all changes when Alan sees the badass new action figures their delivery guy has in his truck. Begging Joe to spot him a set with the intention of elevating the shop’s appeal to customers and proving himself as a savvy businessman with a dream sell-out, Alan believes it will earn him the honor of being more trustworthy with his folks. While it’s a poorly thought-out idea of a naive teenager who has no idea how business really works, the admirable move catapults into an adventure the child never imagined.
Unbeknownst to Alan, is the production background of these action figures. Irwin (David Cross) is a kind-hearted inventor whose partner Larry (Jay Mohr) would sell his own grandmother if it meant getting one of his ideas off the ground. Together they have created The Gorgonites, an action figure range of kindly alien creatures, through which Irwin hopes kids will learn about friendship and acceptance. Globotech boss Gil Mars (Denis Leary) scoffs, “Learn? Next!” Without skipping a beat, Larry presents his own creation, The Commando Elite, a hardcore range of military man action figures with buzzcuts, cigars and bulging tattooed biceps. Much more impressed with this prospect, Mars green-lights the project, but under the stipulation that they be even more badass in their advancements that “when kids play with them, they play back.” Irwin meekly protests creating violent toys, but Mars, in that unshakably corrupt manner of all big movie bosses, is unfazed: “Don’t call it violence, call it action. Kids love action!”
Action Dominated the ’90s Entertainment Landscape
Kids certainly did! This canny line could sum up the kids’ entertainment landscape of the ‘90s. Action was all the rage, kids were allegedly hurting each other (both accidentally and deliberately) by recreating moves fromMighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and parents were fretting about the impact of all this violence on the minds and attitudes of children. It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable concern, although it did inevitably blow up to moral panic magnitude. In turn, big companies knew all the buzzwords that would theoretically soften the blow of their products, and keep them out of legal trouble. Violence became action, and thePower Rangersactorsparroted the same studio-fed linesabout friendship and loyalty to every microphone at the press junket. Image saved, money made.
AsSmall Soldiersventures into this parallel realm, Larry is busy at the lab tracking down the X1000 military-grade microprocessor after gaining full access to Globotech’s databases and setting up a whopper of an order that will turn these plastic action figures into the ultimate kickass machines. Well, he’s right, but in the most disastrous way. Irwin is infuriated that munitions chips have been put into toys, and warns Larry that they are not dealing with artificial intelligence, but… yup, “real intelligence!” Sound familiar?
The ‘Terminator’ World in ‘Small Soldiers’
After two bumblers have accidentally unleashed half a million 8-inch-tall Terminators on the world, the little tikes waste no time in trashing Alan’s dad’s shop and escaping to wreak havoc. They are led by Major Chip Hazard (voiced byTommy Lee Jones) in their pursuit and attack on the Gorgonites, a wimpy bunch whose answer to everything is to run and hide. Archer (Frank Langella) is the unofficial leader of the Gorgonites, mainly because he is the least chicken, and when Alan discovers that Archer is indeed sentient, they form an unlikely friendship. Alan talks Archer through the basic phenomena around him like windows and telephone poles, and answers all of his adorably simple questions. Although they never get into such topics as why people cry, their interactions hit as akid-friendly answer to John Connor’s talks with the T800about the nature of human existence, and why robots, no matter how advanced, can never be truly alive.
The people of this quaint little town are faced with the unexpected. None of them can quite believe it when action figures attack them in armored vehicles improvised out of cheese graters and skateboards. And these attacks are far from playful. Nail guns, knives and explosives are used against the humans, and Alan is even stabbed several times by the toys, on one occasion almost falling to his death as a result. There are real stakes in this world, where people do get hurt and possibly killed, where everything they know and love is blown to smithereens in the course of a single night.
By the end of the ordeal, the world may still be turning, but they have all come to some startling realizations: technology has the potential to be far more lethal than they first thought; the big tech companies have an utter disregard for human wellbeing; and what’s worse, they are very much in the habit of paying people off. Granted, every character, no matter how humble or down-to-earth, changes their tune on a dime when handed an obscenely large check by Mars. Far from wrapping things up, the conclusion of the story poses many more questions about the world. This time, it was toys and no one was actually killed — what will Globotech’s next big project look like? What devastating effect will it have on innocent people? For a family movie, this is a sinister, cynical world in which no one is safe, and everything has a price tag.
The War on Technology
Throughout its runtime, the movie wages war on technology. Alan’s next door neighbor Phil (Phil Hartman, in his final role) is a yuppie obsessed with technology. His house is full of sound systems and gadgets, most of his yard is taken up by a hideous satellite dish, and he even starts chopping down his neighbor’s tree without permission in order to get better reception. Alan’s dad yells at him, “this tree is beautiful, all of THAT is techno garbage!” The narrative really supports the idea of simplicity, that this headlong run into innovation is driven by selfishness and greed, not genuine scientific wonder and discovery. It’s a duality that plays out between pairs of characters: Irwin and Larry; Alan’s dad and his neighbor; Archer and Chip Hazard. They are all torn over the same basic principle, and far from fumbling such a theme, the movie knows exactly what it wants to say and commits to it. Globotech is essentially Skynet, and by meddling and playing God, they have potentially doomed mankind.
An outcome that is standard for a family movie, but that really earns its place here through Alan’s repaired relationship with his folks. There is a wonderful scene in which Alan’s parents are fretting over his perceived dysfunction, talking as if he isn’t there, throwing out ideas as to why their kid is acting up, with accusations ranging from drugs to “projected aggression.” There is such a relatability to it all, both from Alan’s perspective and his parents’. They wonder why he can’t just get on with life like other normal kids, while he wonders why they don’t see that he is not unusual. Their conflict is surprisingly real, so it is a really satisfying payoff when the parents not only realize that Alan hasn’t been pulling their legs this whole time, but that he has a strong sense of bravery and loyalty that they had overlooked. It is one of those coming-of-age transitions in which the parents finally seem to seetheir child as not a child anymore, and they develop new respect for each other on a more adult wavelength. Just like the T800 did for Sarah and John Connor, sentient robots manage to reunite Alan and his folks, and give them all a renewed sense of appreciation for each other. Now their work here is done, it is time for the robots to disappear off into the sunset.
The Terminatorand more pointedlyTerminator 2, skillfully weave some heavy existential topics into a really strong action movie. While Alan may not be the leader of the revolution with the threat of nuclear annihilation on his back, he encounters similar struggles to young John Connor. He feels isolated by family and peers who view him as troublesome, but with the simple-minded help of an intelligent machine, he gains a renewed perspective of self, of the world around him. Meanwhile, both characters and audiences receive a profound warning about man becoming so intelligent that he is no longer the most intelligent. But likeTerminator,Small Soldiersnever forgets that its primary purpose is to entertain, and while critics and adults dismissed it upon release with some even concerned that it was too scary, kids of the era found it really spoke to them. It softly introduced them to ideas bigger than themselves, and reminded them that not all heroes are the perfect children.
