Child's Play (2019)

We live in an era of remakes and reboots, so it was only a matter of time before we'd get a new movie about the creepy, red-haired doll. The only remake I was looking forward to seeing this year and yet missed, mainly because of my job but also because of the low expectations I had about it. You can imagine my surprise when Lars Klevberg's Child's Plays turned out to be a fun, entertaining and gory comedy horror. 

The Kaslan Corporation has just launched Buddi, high-tech dolls designed to learn from their surroundings and be life-long friends to their owners. The problem begins in a Buddi factory in Vietnam where a fired employee takes out one of the doll's safety protocols. 

The defective doll eventually makes its way to the home of Karen Barclay (Aubrey Plaza) and her def, 13-year-old son, Andy (Gabriel Bateman), as Karen gives him as an early birthday present. Although not particularly enthusiastic at first, Andy is soon drawn by Chucky's (Mark Hamill) quirks and they become best buddies. Which leads Chucky to become obsessed with making Andy happy at all costs. 

The most striking aspect of Klevberg's film is the story written by Tyler Burton Smith as it has way more substance and depth than anticipated. Instead of the supernatural origins of the original — a serial killer (Brad Dourif) transfering his soul into a Good Guy doll —, this Chucky is a high-tech doll whose code has been modified to make the doll break bad. While the idea of a doll going haywire isn't new, it is scarier as it could be a real-life scenario and provides a social commentary on technology, specifically on how much we rely on it. A creepy, terrifying version of Amazon's Alexa or Google Home, Chucky here is used to show the dark side of technology, how easily a device can control our lives. 

With the release of Buddi II at the end, an updated version of the doll that is supposed to fix the flaws of the previous, the film also emphasize our obsession with getting the latest piece of technology because it's faster and essentially better than ever. And it's coming in different skin colours and hair colours is a hint at another first-world problem, using/having something — emoji — that looks like us. 

The character of Chucky too is more interesting than ever because of the strong bond he forms with Andy which is the reason Chucky goes serial killer-mode, to protect Andy and that bond — whenever he feels like Andy or their friendship is threatened, he acts accordingly. Chucky is not some evil, possessed doll, but an AI who learns to do bad things — he picks up the stabbing motion from Andy, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II gives him the input to break bad — and eventually does them because he lacks morality and human understanding. Again, he is just an AI, how is he supposed to know that, while it provides laugher and entertainment in horror films, real death leads to quite the opposite results? He acts the way he does because of his surroundings and environment, and therefore he cannot be blamed for his horrible actions. On the contrary, we sympathize with him and even root for him for a big portion of the film — as soon as he starts killing innocent people such as Doreen (Carlease Burke), I no longer rooted for him. 

In addition, Chucky is voiced very well by Mark Hamill. The actor indeed does a wonderful job of bringing the doll to life and finds a great balance between innocence and creepiness. The supporting cast too does a good job as Aubrey Plaza delivers both comedy and horror-drama, and the child actors fit their roles very well and manage to stay away from stereotypes of the genre — the screaming wimps. 

Like its predecessor, this Child's Play is more a comedy than it is a horror but does surprisingly well in both departments. The dark, sarcastic humour is very effective, the gore, although there's a lack of kills, is great, and the ending is quite tense. 

The film is not without flaws though. The pacing is a bit uneven, the reason why some parts are tedious, and the CGI is rather terrible. I kid you not but Chucky looked better in the 1988 film. If the filmmakers were going for a very creepy looking doll, they definitely achieve that, but then why would parents buy their kids such creepy dolls? He should have looked more innocent.