Movie Review: Child’s Play (2019)

A remake of the 1988 movie of the same name, and a reboot of the franchise as a whole, Child’s Play is a 2019 horror movie directed by Lars Klevberg. Retail worker Karen (Aubrey Plaza) manages to secure a defective Buddi doll (voiced by Mark Hamill) for her son, Andy (Gabriel Bateman) for his birthday. Unknown to them, this particular Buddi doll has had its programming tampered with, and all it wants is a friend to keep forever.

+ the character of Chucky him/itself is sometimes quite sympathetic, with none of the ‘serial killer soul’ from the original films. I was surprised at how often I felt like the humans were being unreasonable – that said, the doll looks weird as hell, and I can’t imagine anybody actually wanting one of their own
+ there are a few gory moments, which I certainly appreciated (and, if I’m being honest, wasn’t really expecting). For whatever reason, I didn’t think this modern retelling would go the blood and guts route, but I’m glad it did
+ the fantastic ‘Buddi Song‘ as such by Chucky himself, Mark Hamill. It’s creepily catchy, and subtly sinister

– none of the humans interested or endeared themselves to me. None of Andy (Bateman), Karen (Plaza), neighbour and policeman, Mike (Brian Tyree Henry) or either of Andy’s dweeby friends, Falyn (Beatrice Kitsos) or Pugg (Ty Consoglio) did anything for me, and frankly I hoped that every single one of them would be brutally dismembered by Chucky before the movie was done
– aforementioned gore aside, there were no real scares, and some failed attempts at dark comedy. Overall, this flip-flop between trying to be scary and trying to be funny, but ultimately failing at both, made this a slog to get through

> apparently the building manager is Trent Redekop, and not Jack Black. I was convinced the whole time it was the latter

Should you see this film: No. Hamill’s magnificent voice is the highlight of the film and you can get better versions of that in any of his Joker portrayals and the Darksiders game. I enjoyed one or two bloody moments, but overall this was a bust.