Small Soldiers/YMMV


 * Anvilicious: Joe Dante isn't exactly subtle in how he views "war toys" like G.I. Joe.
 * Cliché Storm: Chip Hazard's entire mode of speech.
 * Complete Monster: Chip Hazard starts to border on this trope as the film goes on.
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome:
 * Alan introduces Nick Nitro to his kitchen garbage disposal.
 * Kirsten Dunst's garage door explodes and the Commando Elite race out on a fleet of home-made vehicles, as Edwin Starr's 'War' kicks in.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: "War! Huh! Good God, y'all! What is it good for?"
 * "Ride of the Valkryies" during the final battle, in a Shout-Out to Apocalypse Now.
 * Also one of the very few movies that Led Zeppelin have allowed to feature one of their songs.
 * Fridge Horror: Think about it. This town can't have been the only place the toys got shipped too. What happened everywhere else!?
 * Answered in movie, Original-Chip got reinforcement from the mall the rest were shipped to, the implication being that only Original-Chip was activated early. The Rest were probably recalled.
 * It's actually a good thing the original toys got found out on this small scale before they were shipped out - especially if they can bust out of their own cases.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: Kevin Dunn plays the father of a kid who gets in over his head trying to impress a girl, and their house gets destroyed by a group of toys. And he gets paid off so he won't tell anybody about it.
 * The Commando Elite comprise a hard-as-nails veteran who pretty much embodies every war movie trope in existence, a massive, buzz-cut-sporting heavy weapons expert, a sniper who also carries several varieties of flamethrower, a slimy chain-smoking backstabber, a pint-sized scout wearing a mic and earpiece, and a suicidally enthusiastic demolition guy. And they're ALL expert engineers and brilliant-but-unethical medics. Who start out with ordinary military kit, but then build themselves increasingly crazy weapons out of stuff they find lying around. Whew. Sounds like prime material for a game adaptation to me...
 * Rooting for the Empire: Note to Hollywood: If you don't want people sympathizing with your villains, you should probably stop making them 10x cooler than the heroes.
 * Or give them several times as much screen time, almost to the point of making them Villain Protagonists.
 * Also, don't then only release three of them in toy form - two in the UK - as opposed to an entire set of Gorgonites and Flatchoo, who wasn't even a Gorgonite.
 * Given that the Commando Elite are in universe the good guys it makes sense they would be cool.
 * Actually, the creator of the Gorgonite line did a little tinkering so that the Commandos were the bad guys. Even then, though, this trope may still apply.
 * Tear Jerker: "Nick Nitro's battery has run out. But his memory will live on!"
 * The final scene.
 * Uncanny Valley: Definitely the Gwendy dolls after they've been "drafted" into the Commando Elite's service.
 * Unfortunate Implications: Nothing goes wrong with the Commando Elite's AI to make them evil; they become the bad guys simply by gaining sentience. Says a hell of a lot on what Joe Dante thinks about not just "war toys," but on people in the armed services in general.