The Devil Dogs of Kilo Company is a 2015 stop-motion animation film using a variety of little green army men to depict a company of Marines in the European theater of operations on a Merrill’s Marauders kind of behind the lines mission, on the orders of the President.

The number of red flags in the preceding paragraph is undeniable, but actually, The Devil Dogs of Kilo Company is sort of great It’s not, like, “great” great, but it sort of is. I don’t know if it’s great for a stop-motion movie that uses plastic toy soldiers or great because it’s a stop-motion movie that uses plastic toy soldiers. It is also sort of terrible, but it’s probably worth watching to try to figure out your response to it. Even though it is often cliched, overwrought and wooden, the battle scenes are truly and surprisingly engaging.

In some scenes the animation consists of plastic army men just sort of hopping up and down to indicate they’re speaking (This includes the plastic FDR who hops in his wheelchair in the oval office because our heroes are so important the President is closely monitoring their progress). Sometimes tanks or trucks are pulled on strings though it is usually stop motion photography.

It seems like it should be a fun, quirky little experiment in animation, but the creators clearly took their work seriously, which had both negative and positive consequences. The animation in some of the battle sequences is outstanding. It has a great kinetic energy created by changing angles, quick cuts and strong sound effects.Sometimes character movement is made by swapping out figures, a running man leaps to the ground and is replaced with the classic crawling green army man (Sure, it’s the one with an M-16, but purists had already tapped out when Marines were fighting in the European theater). The scenes have a chaos and excitement that battle scenes should have–they just happen to feature plastic army men.

Part of why this movie is satisfying is that you will be impressed by the skill, imagination and effort involved in realizing the battle sequences, but it doesn’t pull you out of the movie.

Of course, you’re always sort of pulled out of the movie as you recognize plastic army men you had as a child, and if you never had any, you’re watching a movie with little green army men, so, yeah, but that makes the excitement of the action sequences all the more impressive.

The voice work is not impressive; the vocal performances are monotone. It feels like the talented and committed animation team also did the voice work, and they generally sound like someone reading from a script–a script that is not particularly well written.

The film is littered with over-dramatic and cliched speeches that are a little too macho. Most of the interpersonal conflicts are characters swinging their dicks at each other. Of course they’re metaphorically doing that because there is no indication that little green army men have genitalia–maybe that’s why they talk that way–it’s a compensation mechanism.

All the story and dialogue problems keep this film from actually being great, but I am glad I watched it. If you want action from a war movie, The Devil Dogs of Kilo Company delivers it and the prowess of the stop-motion team is impressive. This film takes itself too seriously, but this flaw may well be how they were able to create battle scenes so affecting using little green army men.

Recommendation

Watch this movie—don’t pay money to do it—but go ahead and watch it, unless you’re the kind of person who will dislike a movie featuring little green army men because it is historically inaccurate, which it certainly is. It’s available on a number of free streaming services.