Child’s Play *** (2019, Aubrey Plaza, Gabriel Bateman, voice of Mark Hamill) – Movie Review

The original 30-year old franchise got up to Child’s Play 7, and now it’s back and just as dodgy and nasty as ever. Norwegian director Lars Klevberg makes the 2019 horror movie Child’s Play very slick, smart and quirky, with a funny oddball black comedy sense of humour, revamping the material and taking away some of the sting from the basically sick and unpleasant bad-karma material of a child being terrorised by a super-creepy killer doll with a knife.

The screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith works well as a reboot. It is supposedly based on characters created by Don Mancini, but really it is based on the original 1988 Child’s Play, with playful tweaks. He could have set it back in the Eighties, but he has chosen to update Chucky as a 2019 monster. Maybe Chucky worked better as the weird unexplained voodoo doll of the original, as it is creepier like that, but we can settle for this new robotic artificial intelligence version, as it is more of a today-vibe horror movie monster.

So Child’s Play (2019) is basically a replay of Child’s Play (1988) with a modern AI twist. Chucky is now a technologically advanced smart toy whose AI is programmed to have no limitations to learning or violence, thanks to a vindictive operative at the Asian factory where the dolls are made. Otherwise it is Chucky business as usual.

Aubrey Plaza stars in her first role as a mother, a young single mom who conveniently works on a K-Mart-style supermarket (called Z-Mart!) customer services counter, where she takes back a dissatisfied customer’s Chucky Buddi doll, and keeps it to give as a birthday present to her hearing-impaired pre-teen son Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman). Why is she so keen to give her son a doll, for heaven’s sake? Well, she seems a very intense, over-caring but unaware sort of mom.

She has a dim and dreary sleazeball lover Shane (David Lewis) who vaguely menaces Andy, and wants her kid to make friends his own age, leaving him sitting in the hallway, and making friends with adult neighbour Mike Norris (Brian Tyree Henry), who turns out to be a police Detective, and his mom Doreen (Carlease Burke). Both child and man are living with their moms! They agree, moms are weird! But then so are they.

Andy’s not the six-year old child of the original film, he is much older and more sophisticated, so he thinks the present is lame but OK then nice, and promptly takes Chucky off to his bedroom. This is an odd move, Andy! Chucky is soon declaring himself Andy’s Best Friend to the very end. For no story reason at all, Andy decides to call Chucky ‘Han Solo’, but oh yes of course Chucky is now voiced by Mark Hamill from Star Wars. As Tom Holland, director of the original movie, said, this is a ‘smart move’ box-office wise, but iconic Brad Dourif is much missed.

[Spoiler alert] You know the film is going to turn nasty PDQ when the first victim is the Barclays’ cat Mickey Rooney. Eight pretty grisly deaths follow before Chucky’s inevitable demise at the end of the movie, but there is no doubt an easy catch and Chucky will rise again no doubt for the next sequel, as the monster never dies. Luckily, Andy does make pre-teen friends when Chucky goes berserk: Beatrice Kitsos as Falyn, Ty Consiglio as Pugg, Ben Andrusco-Daon as Ben and Marlon Kazadi as Omar. They are an odd bunch, real seeming but quite unappealing, probably deliberately chosen to make Andy seem even nicer.

Andy is basically a winsome, resourceful loner, the centre of the entire film, and Gabriel Bateman does an excellent job of the role, even when working with a monster doll or a CGI version of it, which is most of the time. Plaza is good too, not trying too hard, a credible, unique presence, and Brian Tyree Henry and Carlease Burke both score strongly.

Tim Matheson plays the thankless role of Henry Kaslan, head of Kaslan Industries, advanced electronics industry manufacturers of robotics, including the the various Buddi dolls.

It is rated US R or UK 15 for bloody horror violence and strong language throughout, and is not at all suitable for pre-teens the age of Andy and his friends.

Child’s Play (2019) follows Child’s Play (1988), Child’s Play 2 (1990), Child’s Play 3 (1991), Bride of Chucky (1998), 2004’s Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky (2013) and Cult of Chucky aka Child’s Play 7 (2017).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Aubrey Plaza stars in Child’s Play (2019).