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| SMALL SOLDIERS (1998) - PG-13
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SBD Star Rating:
by Lew Irwin
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Many critics are taking up arms against Small Soldiers, the DreamWorks tale of toy soldiers that come to life. Rita Kempley in the Washington Post berates the filmmakers for "the hypocrisy inherent in a movie built around the violent children's entertainment it pretends to condemn." Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail makes the same point: "Here's a movie that extols non-violence while reveling in destruction, and a satire of the excesses of the toy industry, designed to sell violent toys to children." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times takes a similar tack: "Small Soldiers is a family picture on the outside, and a mean, violent action picture on the inside," he writes. Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer calls it, "a charmless, violent, effects-driven movie aimed squarely at the hearts of 6- and 7-year-old boys." (The film is rated PG-13.) Janet Maslin in the New York Times adds, "The film is too absurd to be frightening and too creepy for lighthearted fun." Rod Dreher in the New York Post puts it more tersely: "It's just stupid." |
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