SMALL SOLDIERS (1998) *** Dream material for anyone who's ever wanted to see Kirsten Dunst decapitate mutated Barbies with a golf club, with a Led Zeppelin back-drop and to the background of "Communications Breakdown"...wow! And that's...just the high point, obviously, but the whole damn film's just filled with these incredible moments. Little army men come to life-not artificial intelligence but real intelligence-and incredibly resourceful. If that sounds stupid it should, but Joe Dante's silly suburban Spielberg-lite(r) is played as a trump here. His intellectually bashful approach establishes the framework within which, somehow, this wonderful and absurd action can be taken seriously. I kept catching myself wondering what would happen next, and concerned about it, as if any of it ever could! Wow, that's a neat trick. There are going to be a lot of guys, about 20 years younger than me, who remember this for wild anarchy and unique creativity, and for knocking down all kinds of unnecessary Hollywood dogma facades...much in the same way that (allegedly also Dante's) Rock 'n' Roll High School did for a lot of guys my age. Yeah, and they're gonna remember it for Kirsten as the perfect, coolest, girl next door; and some ambivalence about the also pretty cool Gregory Smith (how come the kinda cool guys always get the super-cool chicks?). Yeah, Dick Miller's in there too, and he's brilliant if that's what you expect from his previous work.
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