Child's Play: Film Review

Child's Play: Film Review

Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Gabriel Bateman, Mark Hamill
Director: Lars Klevberg

There's much to like in the 2019 retooling of the Child's Play series - but there's also much to grizzle about with the feeling that potential has been wasted.

Plaza plays single mom Karen, a shop employee who gives her son Andy (Bateman) a Buddi doll to help the transition to a new home and new life. Buddi is the latest design toy, that imprints on its owner and in this Buddi's case, fixates on him.

Renamed Chucky by Andy, the doll starts to take on a life of its own, mimicking those around, while dealing with defective programming. But things begin to take a murderous intent.

It's clear that Klevberg and co wanted to take some of the electronic paranoia we've been feeling with Black Mirror's technical obsessions and turn it into something that's on point, and through a horror prism.

But what emerges from the 2019 reboot of Child's Play, despite an inherent fear of AI, is just how much that potential is squandered.

Despite a great turn from Plaza, a strong performance from Bateman and some excellent vocal work from Hamill, Child's Play becomes a grubby rote horror that's content to deliver some average jump scares and some lo-fi moments, rather than to build on the idea of a murderous Alexa inspired doll.

The opening's great, inspiring some funny moments, and capturing a kind of 80s vibe that's at odds with the 21st century technology. However, the film's not content to do more with its talent, with a script that doesn't really thrill like it should, or scare like it ought.

There's still the malevolence that Chucky has, and the animatronic doll has some creepy edges, but the script mines every single cliche going before delivering a finale that lacks panache and originality.

That's perhaps the killer blow for Child's Play - it never reaches its potential, and feels a lot like every other 80s serial killer film you've seen before. They've chosen to swap Chucky's USP for a USB - and while parts of it feel like an upgrade, most of it feels, sadly, like a downgrade.

But it is worth it for Mark Hamill's unsettling singing over the final credits...