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Child’s Play Movie Review

Child’s Play is a 2019 horror film directed by Lars Klevberg and starring Aubrey Plaza and Gabriel Bateman. It’s one of the better entries in this series.

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“If they don’t let us play, they all go away“

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Karen buys a high-tech doll called Chucky for her son Andy on his birthday. However, horrific events follow as the doll reveals its ominous tendencies. This movie was a reboot of the original 1988 flick and it opened to solid reviews, but it’s often dismissed by fans and critics for its changes to the series’ formula. But I personally really appreciated those changes.

It was a fantastic choice to update this source material for the modern era. Chucky having the ability to control objects via the Internet was a terrific choice, which led to some unique action sequences. It’s your regular theme of the dangers of high-tech, but it’s mostly well executed. The only issue here is that due to the emphasis on online gimmicks and gadgetry Chucky was significantly sidelined, which bothered me as I love the character. He was well voiced by Mark Hamill and memorably designed, but he needed more to do here.

But I really liked Gabriel Bateman’s performance. His Andy is quite endearing and competent. His friends were also fun and the movie in the first half resembled an 80s family flick. Many compared it to ‘E.T.’, but I would personally compare it more with ‘Stranger Things’. This change in tone and approach ultimately worked as their dynamic was excellent. I just wish that Aubrey Plaza had more to do. She was great as always, but she got a very small role unfortunately. Brian Tyree Henry was also terrific in another minor role.

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This Child’s Play lacks humor. The newer movies focus much more on horror than comedy mostly for the worse, but at least the majority of the kills were well executed. The third act focusing on so many weapons was interesting, but hardly great as it needed scarier and more effective execution. This is an uneven flick, but it mostly works because of its modern, different approach.