2019 Orion Pictures
In 1988 a horror movie came out. It was called Child’s Play and it was about a killer doll. It was pretty good.
In 2019, a remake of that film came out. It was… strange.
Initial impressions of the film were not good. The first thing I noted was the redesign of the infamous Chucky doll. While the previous version got steadily more messed up as time (and sequels) went on, the 2019 doll is intensely disturbing from the outset. Considering that, in universe, the product is designed for children, perhaps a little more time should have been spent in the design phase. One of the features that the fictional company advertises at the start of the film is as a baby monitor, where parents can see their child through the doll. Any child growing up with a Buddi doll watching them sleep is most likely going to require intensive therapy.
The second issue I found was that the trigger for the film really makes very little sense. Unlike the original film, where Chucky was a doll possessed by a serial killer, this film focuses on AI. Chucky is only evil because a technician in a Vietnam sweatshop messed with his controls. Ignoring the fact that I’m fairly certain that a sweatshop wouldn’t be responsible for programming the smart dolls, the reason the disgruntled technician alters the controls is because his boss yelled at him for sleeping. So in revenge, he decided to turn a toy into a killing machine. A toy that his boss would have no contact with. This revenge makes very little sense.
Following this set up, the viewer is introduced to a world where everyone has integrated smart technology all manufactured by a single company. The Buddi dolls act like a creepy walking Alexa that can interact with every other product this company makes. We also get to meet Karen Barclay (Aubrey Plaza) and her thirteen year old son Andy (Gabriel Bateman). This is another area that the film falls down on. While pretty much all the characters in the film are terrible, Karen and Andy stand out, at least to fans of the original film. Rather than simply adopt the premise of the original Child’s Play, they also took some of the original characters – doting mother Karen, six year old Andy and Detective Mike Norris – and altered them in the worst ways. 1988 Karen was a kind, hardworking single mother who was desperately trying to provide for her son and get him the birthday present he really wanted. 2019 Karen is a slightly neglectful, aloof woman who doesn’t seem to care that her boyfriend in hateful to her son and who, rather than get Andy a gift he actually wants, takes a returned defective Buddi doll and blackmails her boss into being allowed to keep it. Her transformation is probably the worst of the original three. Andy is aged up into his teens, going from a rather naïve, slightly whiny but generally sweet child, into a reclusive, socially awkward teenager. It seems almost like the director thought they could replace characterisation with a hint of sad backstory and a hearing aid. He’s not as obnoxious as some of the other characters and he contracts heavily with the other teenage characters, but moody adolescence can only go so far. The detective is generally decent in this version. Without Charles Lee Ray in the story, he becomes involved by being the son of the Barclays’ neighbour. Detective Norris and his mother are basically the only decent characters. They’re the most developed and have a good relationship. I just wish they were in it more.
The other characters in the film are universally terrible making it a joy to watch them be brutally murdered. To be honest, the longer I watched, the more I hoped certain characters would meet their demise. Not just because I wanted rid of them either, the deaths were by far the best bit of the film. They were well done and interesting to watch. One of the things I always enjoyed about the pint size killer was that he had to find ways to overcome his short comings. Robo Chucky has all new tools in his belt, courtesy of the smart technology wired into every home and he uses that to full effect. This new version of Chucky is an interesting variation on the original. Rather than being actively malicious, he forms a genuine friendship with Andy and only begins to develop homicidal tendencies when there is a threat to that relationship. Robo Chucky is less psychopath and more spurned lover in his actions. He also has some truly chilling moments, aided by Mark Hamill’s voice performance. Gabriel Bateman’s Andy is at his best when he is one-on-one with Chucky, allowing for some very emotional and tense moments.
Overall, the shortcomings of Child Play 2019 lie not in its performance as a film but as a remake. It has an interesting premise and although the characters are unlikeable, that just makes it all the more satisfying to watch them get axed off. If this was made as its own entity and not as a remake, it would have been significantly better. Unfortunately, when you invoke the name of an established horror movie series, you also have to deal with the inevitable comparisons. If something like this showed up on Black Mirror, it would be amazing. As it is, not so much.
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