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Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Listen everyone! If the new toy you want looks EXTREMELY creepy and has the face that it might kill you, maybe you should not buy the toy. Ever heard stories of a Furby going crazy and killing people? I think not! They maybe exploded and non-stop talked, but they weren’t that bad. How about the old school Teddy Ruxpin? I had one as a kid. I played mine so much that its mouth stopped, and then I also left my second one on a plane. All in all, those weren’t evil toys.
With that said, “wonderful” movie studios have decided to present the world with a gift. A gift of a remake in Child’s Play and the infamous killer doll named Chucky. Oh, how the world seems to not be able to find an original idea anymore. Once again, the killer doll gets a revamped with some stylish new hair, a creepier look, and an upgrade that comes with an app. How will this new doll take its prey? Does the world even need to know?
In this version, the killer doll is called Buddi, and actually, a serial killer’s soul isn’t absorbed or placed in the doll. Nope, this version has Buddi with some A.I. that would make the Terminator proud. Buddi can learn stuff from reacting to emotions to being caring and other things. Pretty much, Buddi is the child version of the Terminator. Like all movies, something goes terribly wrong. This time, a pissed off programmer is fired by his supervisor in a Vietnam factory. What does this programmer do, you might ask??? He decides to cancels the security protocols of one toy. He then kills himself by jumping off the roof of the factory. Pretty messed up right there.
The movie moves on to Chi-Town with retail clerk Karen Barclay (Plaza) and her 13-year-old hearing-impaired son Andy (Bateman). The family moves into a new apartment building, and Karen has a new boyfriend. Andy is quite a loner and really doesn’t have any friends. Karen gets the bright idea of getting the new Buddi doll for her son. To do this, she blackmails her boss in order to grab the defective Buddi doll that the worker in Vietnam messed with. Karen gives the doll to Andy, who doesn’t seem too impressed. Andy activates the doll and names him “Chucky” (Hamill).
Things seem fine initially as Chucky helps Andy befriend two other kids in the building, Falyn, and Pugg. Things start to go a little crazy as Chucky starts showing violent tendencies by trying to strangle the family cat for hurting Andy. Things really go insane when Andy and his crew are watching a horror film. Chucky starts mimicking the violence on the screen and approaches the trio with a kitchen knife before Andy disarms him. Things come to a head when Chucky starts his killing spree, and Andy abandons him. Now the killer doll has his Drake mindset and looking for revenge!
My thoughts on this film are that it serves its purpose. Is it all-time scary? Nope. Does it make you suspicious of toys? You bet your ass it does—the film, like the original, plays on the fear of a kid. A kid whose toy is trying to kill him, and no one believes him. If a kid ran up to you and said their Pikachu doll was trying to kill them, you would laugh. How about the Barbie dolls? That would be crazy. That is where the film works well. The kid sees it, and no one else pays any attention until the end when toys attack, and Chucky really goes off the deep end.
The story of this film is like Toy Story on horror mode. It is like the original, and the only difference is that besides a serial killer soul getting trapped inside a doll, this time, the doll learns on its own. This version of the doll seems somewhat stranger because you are watching a doll just go crazy. What it sees, it tries to mimic until it goes off the deep end. It was innocent, and then it was like, “F**k It!” I got to stab some people. Chucky straight goes wild from killing things with a lawnmower to do splitting a dude in the middle.
I would say that I actually care for the cast, but I really don’t. In horror movies, I very rarely get attached to characters because they are usually killed off. Plaza was cool as Karen. She was that caring mom who made terrible decisions with the men in her life. Bateman was also cool as Andy. He was a little older than the one in the original film. He wasn’t the whippy little kid. Hamill, as Chucky, was vastly different. The original Chucky was straight up insane because he was a serial killer. Hamill made this Chucky innocent with his little kid’s voice until he snapped. The only thing was the iconic laugh wasn’t the same.
Overall, this remake was pretty good. It is tough to top an original. Usually, nothing ever beats the original, but the story and flow of this movie work. Hamill did a good job as Chucky, and the story was pretty good. Words of wisdom: Leave them creepy-ass toys alone!
