Small Soldiers

This gung-ho kids' flick blends live action with computer-generated imagery to arrive at Toy Story with a body count - a marketing coup so callous the film has to perform comic somersaults to accommodate it. Hence, we have your friendly, old-fashioned toy manufacturer taken over by a ruthless corporate speculator (Leary), whose big idea is GI Joe with killer computer chips and an enemy alien species pre-programmed to lose. When prototypes for the Commando Elite cut loose in a small suburban town, the only thing standing between the passive Gorgonites and premature extinction is new boy in school Alan (Smith) and his admirably feisty neighbour Christy (Dunst). Dante set the template for this kind of story with Gremlins. This is much scrappier and more juvenile, though it's sometimes hard to tell if the target audience is under ten or over 30, given the plethora of cinephile in-jokes and satiric sideswipes.