Review: Child’s Play (2019)

When the Child’s Play (2019) trailer released in April of this year, I watched it. As a result, I freaked out. Who in their right mind would want to bring the concept of Chucky into 2019? Do we really need to give a psychopath serial killer like Charles Lee Ray the ability to connect to the cloud and reign terror as a Bluetooth connected doll?

Apparently not because Charles Lee Ray isn’t a thing anymore. In fact, Chucky, as we knew him, is not a thing anymore either.

Instead of a serial killer on the brink of death putting his soul into a good guy doll, Chucky is now a robot doll plus Skynet. He’s essentially a terminator.

Remember when John Connor tells T-100 not to kill people, so the T-100 decides to maim people instead? Think that but with a doll and the doll doesn’t listen.

Spoilers ahead

I won’t go too deep into the spoilers because this story was very involved. Kaslan Industries creates the newly named Buddi doll and distributes them across the world. But, not before a disgruntled employee removes the safety code from a doll being assembled.

So right away, we lose a lot of the mystic. Chucky is all artificial intelligence.

The defective doll makes it to Andy Barclay as a birthday present from his mother. The Buddi doll imprints on Andy and wants to be his friend until the end.

Hi-De-Ho!

At first, Chucky is fine, he and Andy get close and Andy even starts making other friends in his apartment building. Then there is a situation where Andy’s cat scratches him. Chucky gets mad that the cat hurt Andy and kills it. Andy tells Chucky to kill, but he doesn’t listen.

There’s also a situation where Andy’s mom (Karen) has a boyfriend (Shane) and he’s a complete bully to Andy. Shane’s treatment of Andy prompts Chucky to kill him.

At some point, Chucky gets territorial over Andy and decides he can’t have any other friends. So he tries to kill them. He even murders an old lady in a self-driving Uber.

A big battle-royale of sorts takes place in Zed-Mart, the store Karen got the doll from initially, and all of Andy’s human friends help him destroy the doll.

However, I’m pretty sure Chucky uploads himself into the cloud of Kaslan since he was already connected to all Kaslan products and there will be a sequel.

Maybe.

Overall

Was I a bit disappointed that the reboot took such a technical approach to the Child’s Play idea? Kind of. Here’s why.

The OG Chucky was completely horrifying. He had personality, he had a motive for stalking Andy, and the supernatural aspect of Charles Lee Ray is much more terrifying than a robot turned bad.

This is coming from someone who lost sleep as a child in the 90s because of the Child’s Play franchise.

Granted, Mark Hamill’s voice is the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard in this role. Plus, the film was shot wonderfully. But, if you are going into this film thinking about your childhood, I’d say don’t do that. Wipe your mind fresh and then tell me what you think.

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