Child’s Play (2019) Review

“Heads up bitch”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

They say some things are worth exploring from the beginning more than once. And at the same time, you can’t guarantee if it’ll be worthwhile. That is exactly how I felt when Orion went out of their way to reboot Child’s Play before Universal’s ongoing plans were even over.


PLOT


The 2019 film is a modernized version of the 1988 Classic. The Kaslan produced Buddi dolls are a new sensation due to being high tech designed that learn from their surroundings and act accordingly via artificial intelligence. One doll is not like the others when an overworked employee retaliates to his firing by disabling its safety protocols before committing suicide. In Chicago, the young Andy Barclay (suffering from partial deafness) lives with his widowed mother Karen who works at Zed-Mart. With them recently moving to an apartment and her dating her new boyfriend Shane, who keeps secret that he has his own family, Andy feels alone. Wanting to cheer him up, Karen gets him a defective Buddi doll as an early birthday gift, unaware of it being the tampered one. The doll names himself Chucky and quickly becomes close to Andy the longer they’re together. The presence of the doll does help the boy gain actual friends out of neighbors Falyn & Pugg (Beatrice Kitsos & Ty Consiglio). However, Chucky mistakes the idea that violence is okay when choosing to kill the pet cat Mickey Rooney, named after the iconic actor, solely believing it would solve Andy's annoyance. He then chooses to kill Shane with a cultivator when Andy wishes for him to disappear. When he surprises him by giving him skinned face nailed to a watermelon from a garden, the boy gets help from his new friends to hide the evidence. He inadvertently puts it in the apartment of his neighbor Doreen Norris (Carlease Burke) in order to prevent his mom from finding out his involvement of the recent death, with Doreen's son Mike investigating as detective. Before eventually getting rid of it, the kids disable Chucky and throw him in the garbage. That plan doesn't work out because the doll would then be picked up by the electrician Gabe who fixes him intending to resell it. That doesn't go planned either because once reactivated, he kills him with a tablesaw. Chucky then places himself to be picked up by another kid named Omar (Marlon Kazadi), but only the next day does he reveal himself to Andy publicly at Zed Mart, which leads to escalation of fights between the kids. Andy does steal Omar's cellphone to prove to his mom that the doll is alive, especially after finding proof he will kill Doreen out of jealousy, but Karen dismisses this claim and takes the phone back. As she does so, Chucky also taunts the boy by hacking the tv claiming he won't stop until he has him all to himself after already manipulating a car crash to kill Doreen. With Andy frighteningly destroying the tv with a baseball bat, Karen brings him to work the next day to keep an eye on him. On that same day, Buddi 2 models are being launched and just when Mike suspects the boy to be responsible after finding Shane's face, Chucky hijacks the other toys to attack all the customers. Andy does get help from the other kids to defend themselves and almost retreat with other survivors, but the young Barclay stays behind when discovering Chucky is holding his mom captive. The doll is able to have her hang from from a forklift and a noose. Luckily, Andy is able to slow him by making him think he still cares by singing the toy's theme song. This causes the doll to briefly malfunction and when he cuts him down, he stabs Chucky in his core. Still active, he gets shot by Mike who got injured in the commotion and Karen beheads the doll before the kids help destroy the rest of the pieces. Following this tragedy at Zed Mart, Kaslan CEO Henry Kaslan announces an entire recall for the Buddi product, but the film ends in a cliffhanger with Chucky being able to transfer his memory to another doll. 
THOUGHTS
Many classic horror films I grew up watching had remakes around the decade of my youth, so it didn't really surprise me Chucky would be the next slasher to get a do over. The catch however has to be how Orion chose to do this without consent of creator Don Mancini who was far from done with ideas he had in mind for his franchise. This is where it can be very complicated to try enjoying an IP not because it's a 180 from what we know and enjoy from before, like how Rob Zombie handled Halloween, but the fact this was done when the goal was to live on interrupted and that was ruined thanks to the original director Tom Holland giving the green light for this to happen. We know that remakes don't literally erase the history we've went through, but since Cult of Chucky had its own epic cliffhanger, the studio should've waited until that resolution went about rather than make an official cash grab here. Had Mancini been given a creative input at the time he was offered a producer credit, I wouldn't be pointing out the elephant in the room the way I am now. It's like if another studio were to adapt Stephen King's It when another like Warner Bros. isn't even done with their plans. Now when you put aside the annoyance of typical Hollywood greed and try to go into this as a casual viewer, you can enjoy what's being done by Director Lars Klevberg and writer Tyler Burton Smith who had zero animosity towards Mancini. With the expected technical redesign done for Chucky, you can tell this is a story that tackles technophobia because it's fair to say you shouldn't let your whole life be ran by technology. Bear McCreary's score was rightfully creepy as hell because when you know you're into familiar territory, you know you're in solid thrills. The practicality done for each kill stands out in the similar vein to the previous entries because I am now paranoid of cultivators and automatic cars. Again, the factor of technophobia has big inspiration for M3GAN due to how the antagonist is depicted as a figure that means well rather than be deranged from the start. With this 180, Mark Hamill is able to give a refreshing depiction of the character in his voice performance. Putting aside mixed puppeteering by Jason Ward and blended CGI for the doll's movement, we get to accept this is a figure who is trying to come off naive and come from the right place, wanting to make his owner happy but is incapable of understanding the rules of reality no matter how many times he is explained about it. One look at Andy enjoying The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and he assumed it's okay to be violent. And the more he misreads, the worse he got. I mean I would be irritated two of an aggressive cat and uncomfortable with a parent's new fling since David Lewis portrayed Shane as a typical slime who took advantage of everyone. Hell, he even did us a favor getting rid of Gabe since Trent Redekop depicts him as a visible pig due to spying on Karen, but that doesn't mean he had to do that. However, Chucky's actions do show us how important it is to know the difference of affection and possessiveness. Luckily, there were self aware humans around him that were able to stop him from doing worse than what the original Chucky could have done. Aging up Andy to a preteen was a good idea in order to make him relatable because the young Gabriel Bateman does a great job depicting him as a cynical yet driven kid who was having a hard time trying to fit in after losing his dad. Chucky may have paved the way for him to real friends who were smart enough to have his back and hear him out when things got out of hand, but he knew that wasn't an excuse to let him get out of hand with his intentions, thus not hesitating to deal with the terror as soon as it happened. And you can't deny how big of a heart he has since he was willing to put himself at risk to save his mom, knowing it was a trap. He obviously would've not done that had he not been raised by one who knew how to be compassionate no matter what. Aubrey Plaza keeps it up in terms of refreshing in her perspective because it's one of the few dramatic roles where she minimizes the comedic charm. In this case, she kills it in making Karen a caring mom as we remember her, but this time, she is under the loop for the majority of the story rather than figure it out halfway like the original. You can't really blame him for getting him a doll this case because she wasn't gonna let her kid be miserable in a new chapter of their lives. Playing it cheap is relatable, but I do feel like a discount of a popular toy would've gone a long way. In the end, she returned the favor when beheading her captor. It was also great to see Mike Norris again since he and Karen have not appeared in the sequels at all. Brian Tyree Henry was able to shake it up in portraying him as more reasonable of a guy in his line of work since he waits for the evidence to line up and levels with everyone no matter the age. He is arguably the first friend Andy makes before making friends in his age group since Mike meant well too for sharing his own sarcasm. But when danger goes down, he doesn't get lenient on the job and rightfully suspects Andy with his suspicion. Thankfully, he got to see the truth before they could be goners. With him and Karen surviving together, it wouldn't be a bad thing to see them hit it off since they always seemed to share similar compassion. While we'll likely never see what would this Chucky do next due to Mancini continuing his vision the following decade, it would be safe to assume the Barclays would continue to defend themselves from technological chaos no matter how wild it could be on the doll's end. Having given enough credit, there are still a bunch of things that don't make much sense upon rewatching storywise. Like from the top, I feel like the recall should've happened much sooner as in after the employee killed himself. If his death was investigated, they could've deduced what he did to the doll. Hell, the guy should've not been trusted to finish his job if he was so disgruntled upon being fired. Moving on, it feels pretty stupid to see how stupid the customer didn't know the difference of both new and old Buddi models when he ordered it. It is so on him for not paying attention. And personally, I have a hard time believing Karen's boss Wes didn't know she had a kid because she likely mentioned it when she got hired. And the more I think about it, I feel like she should give Andy a heads up via text when Shane is coming over. I'm sure she would come around at some point in having a pep talk to get used to the guy, but for the sake of respecting how he feels, she should text him and for her sake of privacy as well.Next, Karen should've noticed the broken glass caused by Chucky and Shane should've checked the thud he heard in his truck. Also, the kids should've destroyed Chucky completely after disabling him if they wanted to be sure he'd be dealt with. I then don't believe nobody was in the tv aisle when Chucky was hacking them to publicly taunt Andy. I mean I for sure would notice a screen of a skinned face if I was roaming around an electronic store. Lastly, how the hell was Chucky strong enough to drag Doreen & Karen around to do what he wanted with them? If he had help from the other toys for the latter, I can buy that but that doesn't explain the former. Other than that, this is still solid entertainment to enjoy in the horror genre. In conclusion, 2019's Child's Play is an interesting remake for its various reasons and if you are a big fan of this franchise, I assure you this is not as bad as Seed.