Child's Play

Chucky, the notorious killer doll who was introduced in 1988's original Child's Play, and has hacked and slashed his way through six sequels since, has survived a lot of things.  Now he must face what all the horror icons dread - the modern day reboot.  It's always a gamble when Hollywood takes a fan-favorite horror franchise like A Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween, and tries to recapture the magic.  And usually, the results are tragic.  How does Chucky's reimagining hold up?  Honestly, it's not as bad as it could have been, but the end result is still fairly lackluster.

To be fair, director Lars Klevberg does find a unique angle on the character to try to make this remake stand out in a summer already filled with bloated sequels and uninspired nostalgia trips.  Rather than using the supernatural angle of having the doll being possessed by the soul of a serial killer like in the original franchise, here Chucky is an A.I. toy that can connect to all of your smart devices around your home.  This not only gives the movie a unique angle for the character that we haven't seen before, but it serves for some potentially dark satire on our technology-obsessed society.  Sadly, this is another case of a movie having a great idea, and not fully exploiting it.  Yes, the movie does have some inventive and over the top gory death scenes to appease those who come to the movie looking for it, but it doesn't have as much fun with the idea of the murderous doll being able to control all smart devices made by the same company that built him.

One particular missed opportunity is the fact that its young hero, a shy and withdrawn young boy named Andy (Gabriel Bateman), has an electric hearing aid.  How do you not exploit that in a horror film built around technology?  You could have the evil little toy mess with his device so that Andy could not hear anything, therefore allowing the demon to sneak up on him without the kid being able to hear him.  That would be a suitably creepy and tense sequence.  However, I don't know if this Child's Play is going for frights.  The movie has a strong darkly comic vibe that at times seems to be drawing inspiration from Joe Dante's Gremlins.  It veers so strongly toward the comedic that the movie is just not scary in the slightest, and comes across as goofy more often than not.  It can be said that the original Chucky franchise has frequently found time for dark humor, but it still always managed to make the doll come across as sinister.  This new take on Chucky (who has an innocent child-like voice provided by Mark Hamill) is just too silly to be afraid of.

It doesn't help matters that the design for the evil toy is absolutely horrendous.  How this got past the approval stage is a mystery to me.  The movie tells us that this is the newest tech toy sensation, but that is something I just could not accept.  Imagine if someone made a life-size doll of one of the puppets used in 2004's Team America: World Police, and then gave it WiFi and tech capabilities, and you have a good idea of what this thing looks like.  It's not appealing in the slightest, and often looks cheap.  The whole point of doing a remake of a fan-favorite special effects film is to use the increase in technology to give us a better monster.  But this Chucky can't hold a candle to the work that Kevin Yagher and his team did some 30 years ago.  It only adds to the goofiness of the film, and makes it impossible to take seriously.  The filmmakers try to make the thing look menacing by having its eyes glow red when its angry or about to go on a killing spree, but it still looks off.  And why would a toy company add a feature like glowing red eyes to the doll in the first place?

Since they got the doll so wrong, this Child's Play doesn't work like it should.  I do admire that writer Tyler Burton Smith tries to strike out on his own with the script, and not slavishly follow the original.  The main gimmick behind the film is that this doll has been reprogrammed by a disgruntled factory worker, so its murderous actions are the result of a factory defect.  This Chucky genuinely wants to be friends with its human owner, Andy, and sees its evil actions as a way to help the kid by getting rid of people who either are mean to or hurt him, such as mom's sleazy new boyfriend.  The movie does try to add a human element to the story, by giving Andy some other kids to hang out with, who often come across as if they walked out of a mid-80s Steven Spielberg movie.  There's also a police detective (Brian Tyree Henry) who hangs out around the apartment building, because his mom lives down the hall from Andy.  He's there mostly to provide comic relief, and grow suspicious of the kid when the movie's body count starts to rise.

Again, the problem here is that none of the human characters are as interesting as they should be.  In particular, a big problem is with Andy's mom, Karen, played by Aubrey Plaza.  The way Plaza portrays her is very cold, detached and sarcastic, making her come across as being severely miscast.  As the lead child, Gabriel Bateman does come across as likable, but he has a hard time connecting with his co-stars, particularly the group of friends that he hangs out with.  I just never felt a connection between the kids.  It also bothered me how many comic relief characters this movie has.  Even when there's a murderous toy on the loose, everyone's tossing quips left and right, which really undermines the tension that the film is supposed to be creating.  I probably wouldn't mind so much if the jokes were better, but save for an extended gag involving a severed head that plays as gruesome slapstick, I never laughed or smiled.  The film's climax, set in a Wal-Mart like big box store, has the potential for some manic energy, but the end result is disappointing and nowhere near as memorable as the buildup promises.

Ultimately, I can label Child's Play as a noble effort that comes up short.  It's nowhere near as generic as some other horror remakes like Poltergeist or Friday the 13th, but it also makes too many missteps for me to label it as a success.  I'm really not sure how fans of the original franchise (which is still running, and is even getting a TV series on the SyFy Channel) will react to this take on the beloved horror icon.  It lacks the intimacy and genuine creepiness of the 1988 film, and sort of comes across as way too silly for its own good.

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