I recently watched Small Soldiers^• again after not seeing it since it came out. I remembered it as being a fun movie about what if toys could do what companies say they can do. But it’s even more brilliant than I remembered it.

The movie starts out as if it’s going to be the same old cliché of global soulless corporation against small, heartland company. The toy company is literally named Heartland Toys and the corporation is literally named Globotech. Of the two toy developers we see, one just wants to make educational games. The movie plays into this cliché in the first scene as the CEO of Globotech sneers at learning and peace. He’s coming across as the worst parts of Bill Gates and those guys in charge of the Crossbow Project at the beginning of Real Genius^•.

Then the other toy developer shows off a mockup advertisement video for a line of toy soldiers. In the advertisement, the toy soldier punches his way out of the box and starts talking, and the CEO turns to the developer and asks, “can they really do that?”

The developer doesn’t even understand the question at first, but no, he finally answers, the toys cannot punch their way out of their own box. And that’s when Mr. Globotech turns into Steve Jobs¹, even to the point of correcting his new employees on some advertising sloganry². The Globotech CEO goes on a Jobsian rant about all the things advertisers say their products can do but can’t. And wouldn’t it be awesome if toys could do what they do in advertisements.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if toy soldiers could play back?

Hell yes.

That’s what Small Soldiers^• is about: how completely awesome it would be to have toy soldiers that fight back. Despite all the destruction the toys cause, it’s fun to fight them. Kirsten Dunst has a grim smile on her face as she destroys her Barbie dolls, but it’s the same kind of smile kids have whenever they’re really interacting with their toys. Whenever, in fact, they’re learning from their toys. The main character’s mom has a blast, literally, using her tennis racket to lob bombs back at the toy soldiers as the soldiers converge on their house.

Yes, those toys would be fun.

It helps that the toys were played by some amazing actors. The Commando Elite were voiced by Tommy Lee Jones leading cast members from The Dirty Dozen^•. The slavery-loving Gorgonites were played by Frank Langella leading cast members from Spinal Tap.

Even in a second viewing I’m still not sure how much of the tacked-on story about peace vs. violence and learning vs. action was meant to be taken seriously. That is, I don’t know if the whole point of it was to make fun of that kind of movie, or if there really was such a subplot in the original draft and it was removed once it became clear how awesome those toys really were.

If you haven’t seen it, I’d recommend taking a look at it. It’s like Toy Story in the real world. The Toy Story movies were great movies, and I’m sure kids love having toys from the movies because they’re from the movies.

These toys stand on their own. Or would, if they existed. I put them up there with flying cars and wrist-worn video communicators. We’re going to get them, because we keep imagining them.