Tape Headz Session 6: Small Soldiers (1998)

I made Sean leave over his copy of Small Soldiers since it made the top four last time. It's funny, he told everyone that he actually borrowed it from a family member intending on returning it that night. Evidently Sean really trusts us to take care of someone else's stuff. That's what you risk when putting stuff up for the vote I guess.

Anyway, here are the films!

Two of last weeks tops are knocked out of contention. Mortal Kombat Annihilation  was predictable since Justin single-handedly voted it in the top four, but lack of The Black Hole love was definitely a surprise. Small Soldiers was the only one everyone put points to, so it's no surprise that it won out.

Small Soldiers - 100

Alien 3 - 70

What Women Want - 50

UFO Government Cover- 60

The Black Hole - 40

Gamera - 50

Mortal Kombat Annihilation - 0

You Got Served - 30

Dave votes. Note his both hands and toes giving input.

There was a distinct lack of Sneak-Peaks, with only a commercial for the film's toyline, soundtrack, and video game. It's use of Edwin Starr's classic "War" amused everyone though and we all gave it a point.

Kool-Kasting received at least a two from everyone, with Phil Hartman, Jay Mohr, David Cross, Tommy Lee Jones, and Dennis Leary giving the film a ridiculously '90s cast. It starts strong with some ridiculous scenes involving Jay Mohr and David Cross being bumbling toy goofs and Dennis Leary just doing his "I eat red meat and talk really fast" schtick.

Visual-Touchdown's were much more divisive: only Dave gave it more than a one. While most of us were only impressed by the animatronic's for the Archer character and a Powerman 5000 poster, Dave was nostalgic for the ridiculous CG toys. The one Archer scene in particular that won the majority of us is when he's getting licked by a cat.

While some gave an Eye-Candy point for Kirsten Dunst, Sweet-Emotion was felt by all at the aforementioned Archer cat-lick. Crystal gave it another point for Archer's badassery, while others appreciated the Phil Hartman blooper at the end. Everyone gave one Hip-Tune for the inclusion of the "War" song.

Crystal and Josh gave Spiffy-Scripting one point, while Sean gave it two and Dave gave it three. There's definitely a lot more going on under the hood than any eight year old could comprehend, with all sorts of anti-materialism jokes and there's-too-much-violence-for-kids going on, but we all agreed it's weird that the film quickly became subject to a crass consumer campaign. We recalled all the action figure ads prominently showing off the bad guy soldiers, ignoring the good guy Gorgonites entirely. The film's pretty edgy, but it feels dumbed down in most ways. The teenage boy lead gets stabbed like thirty times and there's a little blood, but he just shrugs it off like nothing ever happened. The soldiers make all sorts of lewd comments at a set of Barbie dolls, cutting to their breasts and at one point a vacant bed, but the Barbies only get used as a secondary army. While the film also constantly alludes to how the lead is a badass who got kicked out of school(s), it never bothers to show how he's a degenerate. In fact, he looks like a sniveling nerd.

Still, there's quite a bit of good humor, especially at the beginning where Nick Nitro's face appears on a screen and he shouts his name really loud. Archer constantly repeating the word "Gorgonites" for the first forty-five minutes of the film was pretty cool too. Unfortunately, nobody gave the cover any points because it's awful.

The film scored 8/8/12/16, giving it a final score of 11. This puts it above the bottom rung of the reviews but still below the majority of films that everyone enjoyed, so it sounds legit.

FINAL RATING: 11