DEPLORABLE `SMALL SOLDIERS' KEEPS FALLING ON ITS SWORD.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Daily News Film Critic

``Small Soldiers'' plays more like a commercial than a movie, only it fails miserably in the one area an advertisement must succeed - selling the product. After watching this abysmally bad kids movie, you will want to avoid anything remotely connected to this dull, loud, morose film.

Near the end of the movie, one character shakes his head and proclaims: ``Toys is hell.'' He couldn't have said it better. (Well, OK, maybe he could have. English teachers, save your mail.) ``Gremlins'' director Joe Dante is responsible for this lifeless dud, a boring recycling of that film's story about a group of angry critters who wreak havoc until a resourceful kid saves the day. ``Small Soldiers'' has none of the satirical wit of ``Gremlins,'' however, and, even worse, none of that movie's slam-bang fun.

``Small Soldiers'' begins inauspiciously with a drawn-out segment involving a heartless head of a global conglomerate (Denis Leary) demanding new action toys that actually can walk, talk, think and, yes, kill. The bumbling toymakers create the soldiers, called the Commando Elite, by using microchips designed by the military. They create a separate series, the peace-loving Gorgonites, to act as the Commando Elite's mortal enemy.

The real torture (an appropriate word in every sense) begins when a young boy, Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith), gets his hands on an early shipment of the soldiers and decides to sell them in his dad's toy shop while he's out of town. Bad idea. While he's home for the night, the toys activate themselves, and the Commando Elite moves to fulfill its primary mission - destroying Gorgonites. In the process, they lay waste to the quaint old shop.

The Commando Elite look like GI Joes on steroids, with all the aggressive behavior that those drugs would produce. They appear lifelike all right, via some impressive animatronics and computer work. But they're never any fun, not even with actors such as Tommy Lee Jones and Ernest Borgnine supplying the voices.

As one-dimensional as they are, the soldiers still come off better than the humans in the film. Broad characterizations are the rule here. Adults are either stupid or drunks. The kids are smart and resourceful. It's a concept that an 8-year-old boy (the movie's target audience) would find unbelievable. But it's not as ridiculous as when the film's young heroine, Christy (Kirsten Dunst), proclaims that Led Zeppelin is her favorite band. Right. You see that every day.

But then having your dream girl swoon over ``Stairway to Heaven'' would certainly be a young boy's fantasy. As would seeing your moronic parents captured by a marauding band of toy commandos. If the movie had a trace of wit or a sense of playful fun, those concepts could have made for some good mischief.

Instead, you're left with sadistic scenes of the Commando Elite binding, gagging and torturing small children, scenes where a boy is set on fire and adults are stabbed with steak knives, scenes where the soldiers fire nail guns for fun and shoot fireballs through the front door.

If all those things were not grim enough, you have the uncomfortable prospect of watching the late Phil Hartman, who plays one of the adults, endure wave upon wave of cruelty. It's a sad spectacle, one of many in this deplorable movie.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Small Soldiers'' (PG-13; menacing action, violence, brief drug references).

The stars: Kirsten Dunst, Gregory Smith, Jay Mohr, Phil Hartman.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Joe Dante. Screenplay by Gavin Scott, Adam Rifkin, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio.

Running time: One hour, 44 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Zero stars.

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Photo

Photo: Sworn enemies Archer, left, and Chip Hazard face off in ``Small Soldiers.''