“Listen. I’m gonna die. I know that for sure.”

Justin’s rating: Little Marines 3 — PTSDelight

Justin’s review: When one beholds the awesome glory of Little Marines’ VHS box, it is entirely believable why someone would snap this up for a weekend watch in 1990, especially if your mom was breathing over your shoulder and huffing disapprovingly if you glanced at a copy of Robocop.

After all, Little Marine’s subtitle boasts “AN ADVENTURE,” it promises songs by kid-favorite Louis Armstrong and Dion, and it’s got the American Family Alliance 1991 Award of Excellence stamped right on the front there. Who wouldn’t want to bask in its glory? It’s even got a kid with a taxidermied animal screwed to the front of his bike, so this will no doubt be so wholesome it’ll bake you an apple pie by the end credits.

And there’s a sequel! Gotta be pretty darned good if there’s a sequel, right?

Nominally, Little Marines is about three best buds on a camping trip right after school gets out for the summer. One’s a chubby kid with a mohawk, one’s an Army brat, and one is forgettable in a blue shirt. They’ve also got a friend who died the previous year, and you just know that’s going to be shoehorned into this plot somehow.

None of their parents seem that concerned at the thought of their children just, y’know, biking out into the woods with no supervision to their near-certain demise. I gathered that this takes place in the Deep South — the mullets are a dead giveaway — so it probably wasn’t as much an issue.

Before you can say “discount Stand By Me,” the trio enter a no-man’s land of weirdness that is mother nature. Again, this movie is simply a camping trip with a string of vignettes — some of them interesting, some dull beyond the telling of it, and almost all of them unintentionally campy.

They build a huge teepee with plastic sheeting that looks like it would be 150 degrees of humidity inside. They say “NO!” to drugs. They go swimming and one pretends to drown. They have flashbacks about their dead friend. They play with a surprising amount of turtles. They make friends with a total stranger and ride in his boat. They salute the flag, listen to the national anthem, and do calisthenics to the Village People.

Their biggest threat is a dork named Snake who owns these here woods and doesn’t take kindly to trespassers. He’s got a paintball gun and a dirt bike, which makes him slightly more intimidating than the adorable “wild” rabbit shown two scenes earlier. But these kids are Marines, wouldn’t you know*! Or they imagine themselves to be, so they’re not going to be scared off that easy.

There’s a look and tone to Little Marines that’s hard to explain unless you’ve watched a good amount of amateur family productions. It’s a step up from camcorder visuals, but it’s still abrupt and awkward and solely populated by people for whom this is their very first acting credit. I couldn’t get over how often this movie will zoom in on an object or person as if to say, “Hey! Did you SEE the thing? Pay attention to the thing! Right THERE!”

I also got the feeling that the screenwriter was only lightly acquainted with kids and how they talk, which is why every encounter sounds like a grammarian is shoving words into their mouths.

The weird thing is that in between chuckling at all of the perplexing moments and unnatural camerawork, Little Marines had moments that actually felt a little authentic. Everyone here is super-upbeat, and the bulk of the film is seeing kids being kids. It’s trying so hard to capture those youthful summer vibes — not often succeeding, but at least trying.

Don’t get me wrong: This is a hokey movie that meanders for a very long time with no story and then limps to a bizarre end where everyone, including a random stranger, unloads their terrible trauma like it’s a therapy session. Like, we JUST MET this guy, he doesn’t even have a name, and he’s whining about losing his wife and kid to a drunk driver. How am I supposed to process this?

The whole production is objectively awful and is scored with someone’s idea of a playful synthesizer. I can only imagine how many poor kids this film got shoved down their throat because their parents bought into that seal of approval by the Joyless Luck Club up there.

*No, they’re not. Maybe “marine” in the sense that they went swimming.

Intermission!

• The last day of school gets taps played as the flag is slowly lowered… also, a kid is spanked by a teacher in broad daylight
• That bike handle looks so straight and weird
• That bathroom scene. Goes on. And on. And on.
• “A hair! All right!”
• They’ve got an old fashioned jukebox in their home? That’s pretty rad.
• This kid tries to play with every toy in his room in two minutes
• Mohawks make moms feint
• Dude, don’t wink AT THE CAMERA
• It’s NES Punch-Out!!!
• Baseball cards $1 each seems like a ripoff
• Yeah how dare you pet that lady’s dog
• Free drugs! They’re free! Why don’t you take them? C’mon! Free!
• The bikers very lightly intimidating the kids
• The RC plane looks awesome
• The zoom in on the church sign
• I think if your friend died a year ago, his grave wouldn’t have a mound of fresh dirt on it still
• I swear, this movie takes forever for them to even get to their campsite
• KEEP OUT SNAKE
• Water wings — do kids even have these anymore?
• They actually show the kid (as a general) smoking… something
• Maybe don’t start a fire inside your airproof tent, stupid.
• “Cancer, you’re not fair!”
• Brushing with your finger doesn’t look that effective
• Dude, don’t put the lake water IN YOUR MOUTH and gargle
• Breakfast is… sardines?
• That’s one patriotic airplane right there
• Just going to make us sit through the entire national anthem while the kids fake-cry, are we?
• Exercising to Village People is the worst way to start your day
• It’s Turtle Time!
• That is no wild rabbit. That’s obviously some crew member’s pet.
• “No way. We hunt, we kill!”
• It’s Bikin’ Time! Biking right into a lake and losing your bike, I guess.
• Snake shoots his own helmet on purpose and then throws the paintball gun away?
• “Well I’ve got a whole can of worms over there that you can have as many as you want.”
• The STRANGER has a traumatic backstory of losing his wife and kid to a drunk driver? That’s a hell of a thing to drop on the audience five minutes before the end credits.
• Well, that guy’s over his sadness
• And now that stranger and the kid’s mom are married
• So I guess the maxim is, “Completely trust total strangers and they’ll become your family.”
• EVERYONE is unloading trauma three minutes before the end of the flick. “My dad never told me he loved me!” Shut up, pretend film people.
• These kids build a fully functional lake-spanning ZIP LINE? Sure. Why not.