| Comedy | MPAA:PG |
I had a complete, and fairly witty review (as usual) written
for this film, only to discover that I had completely wiped it
out when I used it as a template for the review for Dave. I'm even having a hard time remembering
what my opening paragraph was like. It was something about the
chincy Star Trek reviews you get
instead some full blown wallop like the Star Wars and Bond films.
All because I thought it would be more fun to review Toys.
The film opens with children dressed as ballerina's, Christmas
trees, elves, and snowmen dancing on a minature Manhattan set.
Then Wendy (of Wendy and Lisa, and Prince and the Revolution),
starts singing at the top of a large Christmas tree with a bunch
of children. While this is going on, a limo that looks
suspiciously like a military Humvee, travels to the toy factory
where all this is going on. In the limo is General Leland Zevo
(Michael Gambon), he is visiting his brother Kenneth (Donald
O'Connor), toy maker extrordinair, and his assistant Owen Owens
(Arthur Malet). Unfortunately, Kenneth is about to go to the big
toy factory in the sky, and doesn't feel that his children,
Leslie (Robin Williams) and Alsatia (Joan Cusack), are ready to
take over the factory, and would like Leland to take over for a
while. After speaking to his father, the Old General (Jack
Warden), he agrees. He finds the toy business to be endlessly
boring, until the word Industrial Espionage come up. He calls in
his son Patrick (LL Cool J), from the Special Forces, to take
over security for the factory. Soon there are all sorts of
security people roaming all over the place, stepping on toys and
scaring the spit out of people. In fact, Leslie has to rescue the
copy room attendant Gwen (Robin Wright) from Patrick's
"Duplication Investigation" interrogation. Gwen was
hired by Leslie's dad the day before he died (he thought they'd
like each other -- they do). Next, the General brings up the idea
of war toys, but the designers (Steve Park, Yeardley Smith, among
others) have no clue as to make a war toy, much to the General's
dismay. Patrick takes the General to an arcade, where the General
sees video war games for the first time. This inspires a
brilliant idea -- to make toys with deadly fight capabilities,
remotely controlled by kids playing video games. He goes to the
factory the next day and tells Leslie he'd like to have a little
space so he can try out some ideas on his own. The General's
little space keeps expanding, and taking over the building.
People leave or get fired, resources keep evaporating, something
must be done -- so -- Leslie and Alsatia hatch a plot to sneak
into the restricted area. They distract the guards with a fake
video, and Leslie finds all the kids learning how to kill people.
Then the alarms go off, and as Leslie tries to escape, he
encounters a particularly nasty toy called the sea swine. After
another noisy confrontation in the board room, Leslie, Gwen,
Alsatia, and Owen go back and try to formulate a plan.
Meanwhile... Patrick is visiting his girlfriend, Nurse Debbie
(Debi Mazar). She lets it slip that she has been somewhat
intimate with the General. She also lets it slip that Patrick's
mother did not die from appendicitis, but that the General sent
her on an undercover mission to North Vietnam (disguised as Jane
Fonda) and she never returned. He goes and joins our intrepid
good guys, and tells them all of what the General is up to. They
make a plan, and sneak into the factory -- where the General is
waiting for them. They sneak in, and the General starts sending
his deadly toys after them. They get chased around a while, until
they finally duck into one of the old toy wharehouses. Patrick is
off trying to shut down the main computer, So Leslie and the rest
start sending the old toys out to distract the killer toys. There
is toy carnage aplenty, but our intrepid heroes begin to win --
so Leslie races to the Manhattan room to find Patrick. Patrick
gets shot near Tiffany's while sneaking in, so he tells Leslie to
go for the computer. There's more shooting until one of the
killer helicopters finally shoots the main computer and the toys
shut down -- except for the Sea Swine. The others join Leslie and
Patrick in the Manhattan set, just in time for the Sea Swine to
blow Alsatia's head off. This is not as bad as it seems, because
Alsatia is a robot. Leslie's mom died when he was very young, so
his dad built Alsatia to keep him company. The the Sea Swine goes
after the General, and the battle ends. Finally, we see another
Christmas program, kids frollicking with rebuilt toys, the
General is with Nurse Debbie and the Old General, and the
intrepid heroes are out visiting thier fathers monument for the
happy ending. As the end credits roll we see the monument (an
enormous elephant) flying through the air above the fields.
The films is visually stunning -- Bright colors, strange sets,
surreal images -- strange effects (especially the way one of the
rooms shrink). The script -- well, most of Leslie's lines seem to
be Robin William's adlibs, while many of Patrick's lines sound
like a rap without a backbeat. The film is fun, a little wierd,
but reasonably good family type fun.