Child’s Play (2019)

Trailer: 

Check out my review of the original Child’s Play here!

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Single mother gifts a rather expensive and sophisticated doll for her young son. Turns out that doll is a psychotic AI who has jealously issues and sounds like Luke Skywalker after smoking a full carton of Camels.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Great to see the good ol’ Orion logo. Welcome back buddy.
• Tim Matheson? Otter? How’d he get roped into this?
• Wow. The new “Chucky” doll is ridiculously ugly.
• And it’s basically not just a toy anymore but an Alexa that controls WiFi components in the house like turning on the TV and playing music. I understand and appreciate them upgrading the movie to highlight today’s new modern tech but they could’ve made it simpler and just made it a toy. Making it a toy and an AI assistant is weird.
• So instead of being possessed by a serial killer this time, this particular Buddi doll’s safety protocols were removed by a disgruntled Chinese laborer in the factory.
• Zed Mart?! Shop zmart. Shop Zed Mart.
• Aubrey Plaza will surely liven this flick up with her sunny disposition.
• This African-American really hates “gingers.” He’s totally upset that the Buddi doll he bought has red hair.
• Why is Aubrey Plaza’s son watching videos on his phone of a Buddi doll humping a box or something.

• Is this a comedy now? Aubrey Plaza is a single mother who looks out the window and says “Look, there’s two kids standing outside in the rain. That looks like fun” to her lonely 12-year-old son.
• So now Chucky, or Buddi, is upgraded to AI assistant/companion but he’s basically still wearing the same lame goofy overalls and striped shirt like Chucky in the original. So it’s like he looks like a little kids’ toy/doll still but the adults use him to raise the thermostat and ask what the weather is like this weekend. Very strange.
• How long before someone makes a horror movie about a sentient fuck robot from Japan who goes on a bloodbath rampage? 4 years perhaps? Hopefully, sooner.
• “You have a kid?” Asks the fellow employee of Aubrey’s. “Yeah I have a kid. I had a very productive Sweet 16.” I’m gonna now give this film the benefit of the doubt.
• She blackmailed that employee to get a free Buddi doll by threatening to tell his wife about an affair he had. She knows about this employee’s sexual escapades but he doesn’t know she has a kid? 
• Andy walks in his house and immediately discovers his mom making out with some fella. I am loving Aubrey Plaza way more than I expected so far.
• Because of his slutty mom, Andy hangs out in the hallway of their apartment and starts talking to Brian Tyree Henry whose mom lives across the hall. He hates his mom so much for inviting him to dinner every week that he asks Andy if he wants to join them. They literally just met.
• Brian Tyree Henry is a detective by the way. Can’t he just shoot his mom or plant drugs in her apartment?
• Andy tells his mom that the Buddi doll is so last year. Fucking brat.
• I gotta say, this new Chucky is creepy as fuck. Kinda looks like Louie Anderson mixed with Rosie O’Donnell.

Chucky dolls offer more than you’d expect if you download the Adam & Eve app.

• It’s now voiced by Mark Hamill. Andy wanted to name him Han Solo but the malfunctioning Buddi doll defaulted to Chucky.
• Aubrey guilts Andy into liking the toy despite the fact that it’s malfunctioning.
• Weird seeing this new Chucky walk while holding Andy’s hand.
• Did the original Chucky blink? Because it’s unsettling.
• Hahahaha. Why the fuck did Andy just stab his kitchen knife down hard sticking it into the wooden cutting board after cutting his sandwich?!?
• Shane, Aubrey’s boyfriend, is an asshole. 
• Loving the uplifting music swells during this bonding montage.
• Andy’s dumb cat attacked and scratched him for no reason!
• Well now Chucky is strangling the cat to death! And after Andy stops him, he gives Chucky the T2 ‘don’t kill people’ rigmarole. 
• Pretty damn creepy doesn’t even scratch the surface Andy.
• Andy’s making some friends but more so because these kid are super impressed that his Chucky doll can say cuss words.
• One of the new friends, Pugg, commented in front of Aubrey that Andy has a hot sister. When Andy corrects him that she’s his mom, he says she’s even hotter.
• Kudos to these kids who are choosing to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
• However, they are totally watching it out of order somehow.
• Andy comments that Leatherface being able to slice off someone’s face to make a mask that easily “wouldn’t even happen.” I’m hiring Andy to be a guest reviewer next Schlocktoberfest.
• Chucky tries to kill Pugg with a cleaver. Andy gets a small slice on his arm when he tries to stop him. Same sort of thing happened to me with my Roomba.
• Shane is a total dick but I have to say, the actor they hired for this role does not look like a dick. I know that’s subjective but at the very least he could be a dick in the way that Glenn Howerton’s Dennis is on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
• He tells Karen that he really isn’t hungry when she offers some homemade cookies to him while he’s watching football. He goes on to say that he’s getting another beer. This actor does not look like a beer drinker nor a football fan.

• Hahaha. Chucky somehow climbed up the kitchen counter mere feet away from the fridge that Shane was getting his beer without making a peep.
• Hahaha. Now Chucky is replaying the sound bite of Andy calling Shane an asshole for both Shane and Karen to hear. Way to go Chuck, you just got Andy in the dog house.
• Chucky is not happy he was locked in a cabinet. Well he should’ve thought about that when he told Shane that he was an asshole.
• Did Karen really think that keeping Chucky in a cabinet with glass doors was going to work? Why didn’t they try to turn him off?
• Chucky killed the cat. Andy covers the ordeal up. Now Chucky is waking Andy up with sound bites of the cat dying. Chucky’s sadistic mind games are stellar.
• I forgot to mention this but in my defense it really hasn’t come into play at all is that Andy wears a hearing aid. They mentioned it once in passing and one time the frequency was too high and hurt his ear but that’s basically it.
• Hahahaha. Chucky just scared Shane while he was taking a piss and he pissed all over himself.
• Man, the sex with Aubrey Plaza must be awesome for this Shane fella to deal with all this bullshit with Andy and Chucky.
• Plot twist! Shane is married with two daughters! He really is an asshole.
• Why in the hell is Shane taking down his xmas lights in the middle of the night? Couldn’t this wait until the weekend?
• Chucky pulls Shane down using the lights and Shane somehow lands squarely on his feet breaking both his ankles.
• As Shane attempts to crawl towards his cell phone Chucky turns on the cultivator that slowly is inching towards Shane. Shane manages to stop it but then Chucky tries to stab him and he has to defend himself from the knife letting go of the cultivator and well, let’s just say Shane is a tad bit shorter now.
• Why Shane’s yard just had a cultivator lying around is anyone’s guess.
• Hahaha. Chucky just said “This is for Tupac!” As he stabbed Shane. (One of Andy’s friends told Chucky to say that earlier but it wasn’t even remotely funny then)
• Of course Brian Tyree Henry is the detective own Shane’s murder case. And for some reason Shane’s face is missing. I’m assuming Chucky copied Leatherface.
• Yup. Shane’s face is displayed in Andy’s room for him to find. What a good friend.
• Again, dumbass Andy tries to lock Chucky away in his closet not once trying to turn the doll off or reset him, etc.
• Andy calls his friends Fallon and Pugg to help him with Shane’s face being in his room.
• Not only is Shane’s face on a watermelon (more on that in second) but Shane’s eyes are also somehow still attached. Not sure how that logically works.
• So Shane had a watermelon patch at his home where he was killed but he was in the process of taking down xmas lights so what freaking time of year is this?
• OK. So Andy, with the help from his friends, wrap Shane’s watermelon head in literally wrapping paper with the intent to throw the head in the garbage chute. However Andy lies to his mom that this is a gift he made to their neighbor Doreen (Detective Mike’s mom) for helping him with his homework. When Karen and Andy go over to Doreen’s apartment to deliver it, Doreen gos along with the homework ruse to help Andy. She takes the gift but Andy convinces her to not open the gift until Andy’s birthday next week buying him some time. What a convoluted plot line here. Why is every adult falling for this malarkey!

• Plus wouldn’t that rotting head start to stink up Doreen’s apartment in a matter of hours?
• Andy has faith that Doreen won’t take a peek at this weird, heavy smelly gift as soon as they leave her doorstep? She already knows something’s not right. This is so dumb.
• So fucking dumb.
• So incredibly fucking dumb.
• So now Andy has to get back the head AND somehow “deactivate” Chucky before he kills again. This flick is crazy.
• Doesn’t Chucky’s batteries have to be charged for him to work? I remember they tried to take out Chucky’s batteries in the 1988 original and he didn’t need them but that Chucky was possessed by the soul of a serial killer. This Chucky is 100% technology and computer—no voodoo shit. It needs a battery and that battery will need to be charged! How has no one thought of this while making the flick?!
• Chucky has a glowing battery in his chest. Just like Iron Man’s arc reactor.
• Some lucky dumpster diver finds the discarded broken Chucky in the trash where the kids threw him out. And he somehow fixes Chucky so he can resell him. The movie was going great until these last few dumb scenes.
• I’m confused as to why the dumpster diver guy has multiple closed-circuit TVs showing what’s going in in various people’s apartments including Doreen’s where Andy is dining with her and Mike. This seems like a plot point that should’ve been addressed earlier. We just met this character and as coincidental it was for him to find the Chunky doll in the trash and be able to fix it easily, he also is spying on the whole neighborhood?! This is beyond absurd.
• How is that fucking head NOT stinking up the apartment?!
• While Mike and Doreen are out of the room, Andy steals the head and runs out to throw it away as initially planned. But both Mike and Doreen know about the present and will know it is linked to Andy. Andy should know that. He should’ve just unwrapped the head to help his case. But Andy’s not that bright.
• This dumpster diver guy kinda looks like Jack Black. And he’s getting excited watching his spy camera that is in Karen’s bathroom as she undresses for a shower.

• Another thing to bring up is the company that makes Buddi dolls is Kaslan, run by Tim Matheson (who hasn’t been seen since before the main credits) and they are kinda the film’s way of satirizing Amazon/Apple with their “taking over the world with AI” ways. Not sure how much this will come into play or how strong the theme will be though because it’s not mentioned much yet.
• This dumpster diver perv has his whole apartment rigged with Kaslon activated stuff like his lights and TVs. Even his table saw is Kaslan linked for some reason. Also Chucky raises the temperature of a random pipe that the dude was hanging on to stop him from falling on the table saw. Again, this is so convoluted. Chucky couldn’t just sneak up to him while he was watching Karen undress and slash his throat?
• The new Buddi 2 model somehow will have a Leprechaun outfit accessory. WHY?!?!?!
• The Zed Mart that Karen works at sells all this high-end merchandise like a Wall-Mart or a Target but the shelves and layout of this store makes it seem like it’s a Dollar Tree. It’s kinda weird.
• Now the movie is trying to use the whole Andy is being made to look paranoid or crazy when it’s Chucky making him seem that way unbeknownst to everyone else. But his friends already know about how sentient Chucky is and that he is menacing enough to kill people. You can’t have this make Andy crazy plot line now in the final third of the movie. So bizarre!
• A self-driving Kaslan Kar! It’s a brave new world!
• Doreen is loving her Kaslan Kar ride. Until, upon approaching her destination, it then goes off the rails and Chucky wants her dead now. Why did Chucky allow her to go to whatever destination she wanted first and then try to kill her. And how did Chucky get to wherever Doreen was going to? 
• “Hobbit Motherfucker!”
• If Chucky was just planning on stabbing her to death, why bother going through the trouble of controlling her Kaslan Kar?!
• Andy has Omar’s phone (Omar is another friend of Andy’s apparently). Wouldn’t Omar be able to locate his phone like every other smart phone? At the very least deactivate it while it’s missing?
• Why did they allow Detective Mike to see his mom dead with a knife sticking out of her chest lying on the pavement at the crime scene? Couldn’t they try to stop him from seeing her like that since it is his own mother? I mean, he can’t be the only detective in this city right?
• Without getting into too much detail but the film seems to be wrapping up with Detective Mike trying to arrest Andy for the Shane head they found in the trash. Andy’s friends were trying to help Andy because they realize that he is in danger from Chucky. And in a few short minutes at midnight, the Zed Mart will start selling the new Buddi 2’s (why are all these kids up and at the Zed Mart this late anyway?). Chucky is at the Zed Mart. Not exactly sure why. Maybe to kill Andy. It’s unclear. All I know is too much is happening all at once.
• Furthermore, It’s implied that this time of the year is after Christmas since Shane was taking down his xmas lights. So why is Kaslan releasing their new Buddi 2 way outside the holiday season?
• Hahahahaha. So the stock guy that Karen blackmailed earlier in the movie is dressed like a giant Buddi doll for the Zed Mart Buddi event and before he goes to see the crowd of shoppers Chucky stabs him in the neck. He then stumbles out to the crowd and in front is this little 10-year-old girl happy to see this giant walking Buddi doll. The stock guy then takes off the giant Buddi doll head off his head revealing his wound in his neck gushing blood all over, especially all over the little girl’s face!
• Is all this mayhem because Chucky watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2? That’s it? One little old horror movie and this robot goes haywire and goes on a murderous rampage?
• Now Chucky is controlling these drones in the store and the blades are killing people in the crowd and this film just became a Sam Raimi flick.
• Oh no, Detective Mike is dead! 
• Chucky is also controlling all the other Buddi dolls including the new Buddi Bear doll who, as you may guess, is just like a little bear and mauling people. 
• Now this flick turned into an episode of Stranger Things with Andy and his friends taking charge and defending themselves from the dolls and drones. And now they realize that they have to save Karen from certain doom.
• I love the voice that Hamill is doing for Chucky but it’s pale in comparison to Brad Dourif because Hamill doesn’t say anything remotely entertaining or snarky. Dourif was sarcastic and more menacing. Hamill is just saying stuff like “You’re my best friend” and “let’s play Andy.” Remember when Dourif made Chucky say “Fuck you” to the old lady who said he was ugly? There’s nothing like that here.
• Why would that toy cop car say in Robocop’s voice “Dead or Alive, you’re coming with me?” Is that Orion’s way of being cute?
• Again, Chucky concocts a whole trap for Andy with Karen on a rope in some sort of slow moving trap that Andy has to race against time to save her. Instead, Chucky could’ve just stabbed her.

• Make a long story short, Andy saves his mom, defends himself from Chucky and disarms him. Then grabs the knife and stabs Chucky in the chest, Supposedly, killing him until a quick jump scare later when yucky leaps towards him and Detective Mike somehow has the strength to stroll in and shoot him. Then Karen rips Chucky’s head off.
• So Andy wearing a hearing aid was a moot and pointless point. Andy being hearing impaired had absolutely nothing to do with anything. As far as I can tell the actor, Gabriel Bateman, is not deaf or needs a hearing aid so making Andy impaired for the sake of being impaired was a strange choice.
• As Karen and Mike are taking away to the hospital, Andy and his friends continue to destroy Chucky’s body with hammers and such. Tim Matheson then returns via commercial stating that they are not responsible for the massacre or something. I stopped caring even when I was typing this and the credits are rolling so I’m done.
• Why did they make Mark Hamill sing this terrible Buddi theme song? Two years before he’s drinking some green milk that he milked out of some alien in The Last Jedi and now he’s singing this song? Poor guy.

Final Thoughts: This remake was working great up until Shane’s head became a huge joke. Maybe this movie wanted to have fun or maybe I missed the point and it was a spoof of the Child’s Play flicks. I really don’t know nor do I care. It seems to me that they wanted to update the story of a little sentient toy that becomes a homicidal maniac with today’s modern technology which is great. That’s a fantastic reason to remake an old movie. However, they failed to take into account that having the Chucky doll look basically the same kind of cute as the original Chucky makes no sense for a 21st century AI personal assistant as well as toy. I get that they wanted this 21st century Chucky to be able to control other things remotely to further the terror but he looks like Danny Bonaduce in overalls. It’s just jarring. And making the Andy character be older this time (the original Andy started at like 6 and this one he’s 12!) was an odd choice as well since 12-year-olds shouldn’t have a ‘cute’ doll designed to be ones’ friend as a toy. But I was able to look past that for most of the first third or half up until the super dumb plot point of Shane’s head wrapped in gift wrapping and left at Doreen’s apartment. The movie quickly comes off the rails after that point and never really recovers. I got a chuckle with the girl getting sprayed in the face with blood at the finale but that was it for me.

Score: 5 This is For Tupacs (out of 10)

Which was Better?: Brad Dorif’s original is a bona fide classic. Sorry Mark Hamill.