“Small Soldiers.” Directed by Joe Dante. Written by Gavin Scott, Adam Rifkin, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for violence and mild language)

You know a film is failing when, midway into it, several members of the audience rise from their seats and leave the theater in a huff of grumbling frustration.

“Small Soldiers” is that film. At my screening, six people walked out, all adolescent boys, suggesting that the film is not just a disappointment, but that it doesn’t even appeal to its intended audience.

In spite of the fact that it was directed by Joe Dante (“Gremlins,” “Gremlins 2,” “Innerspace”) and written by a small army of writers, the film lacks originality, cohesion and creativity. There are times when it is unnecessarily complicated. The pace lags. The film is too long, too violent, and too dull to adequately capture our interest. It is, in fact, an unfortuante waste of time.

Once again, we are dealing with a film that has taken painstaking efforts in creating a war chest of brilliantly conceived special effects; the problem is that so much attention has been given to these effects, story and characters are lost, coming off as little more than rushed, stilted afterthoughts.

“Small Soldiers” should have been a sure thing, particularly since it rips off Disney’s “Toy Story” in its depiction of toys that spring to sudden life. But that is where the similarities end. Whereas “Toy Story” was perfectly suited for children, “Small Soldiers” is too violent for children.

In the film, a toy company recently purchased by a defense manufacturer shuns the idea of creating educational toys for children in favor of developing toys that will teach them the fundamentals of war.

The company creates two sets of toys: The Gorgonites, a tribe of alien misfits who want to live peacefully, and the Commando Elite, a batallion of tough, mean-looking Army types who see the Gorgonites as their ultimate enemy and thus find themselves in a constant state of war with them.

Fitted with the military’s violent X-1000 computer chip, the toys are shipped to stores, where they eventually come to life and launch into a battle that includes such formidable weapons as a song by the Spice Girls. Shot out of speakers like so many warheads, the song “If You Wanna Be My Lover,” which elicited sharp cries from the audience, somehow left those on the screen untouched, a shame when you consider the humans in “Small Soldiers” (Phil Hartman in his last feature film, Kirsten Dunst and Greg Smith as two swooning teens) are ancillary, unimportant cliches.

Its possible that “Small Soldiers” is a sly commentary on our culture — particularly on the evil machinations of big business, which knows that a toy bomb placed in a boy’s hands will be infinitely more interesting to the boy than, say, a book. But in a film whose audience is predominantly young boys, that commentary, unfortunately, misses its mark.

Not unlike this film. Grade: D+

Video of the Week “The Replacement Killers.” Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Written by Ken Sanzel. Running time: 88 minutes. Rated R (for graphic violence and strong language)

In “The Replacement Killers,” Antoine Fuqua’s surprisingly good, high-gloss thriller, Chow Yun-Fat, a huge action-adventure star in Hong Kong, makes his American debut as John Lee, a Chinese immigrant to America who finds himself on the run in one of the year’s better thrillers.

Lee, a professional hitman, has made the mistake of not following through on a direct order by Los Angeles-based drug lord Terrence Wei (Kenneth Tsang). The order? Lee must murder the police detective who murdered Wei’s son. The catch? The police detective, Stan Zedkov (Michael Rooker), has a son of his own that Lee must kill first so Zedkov will know the pain of losing a child.

Knowing there will be repercussions that will result in the immediate death of his Shanghai family, Lee goes to Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino) for a forged passport that will get him out of the states and into Shanghai — before Wei’s men can act.

Fuqua’s debut film fails to develop Lee and Coburn into fully realized characters, but his thriller is stylish and unrelenting without making Woo’s mistake of crossing the line of complete implausibilty. His characters say as little as possible, choosing elegantly choreographed action sequences over a mouthful of unwanted words. What a welcome reprieve. Grade: B+

Christopher Smith, a writer and critic who lives in Brewer, reviews