I never understood it. How on earth could anyone be scared of a doll with a knife? Can’t you just kick it? Punch it? Burn it? The original Child’s Play didn’t appeal to me at all, but this 2019 reboot makes excellent use of a few advantages the original did not have: a healthy dose of comedy, riding the Stranger Things wave of success, and of course, the internet. Snap all those parts into place and this Mr. Potato Head of a movie does quite alright.
In the 2019 version of Child’s Play, 13-year-old Andy Barclay is struggling to fit in 
with kids in his new apartment complex where he and his mom Karen (played by the delightfully sarcastic Aubrey Plaza) have moved to make a fresh start. Karen’s new boyfriend is a dud and the only friends Andy manages to make are a middle-aged detective and his mother down the hall.
Recognizing things are looking pretty grim for Andy’s upcoming birthday, Karen hopes to cheer him up with the latest and greatest gadget—Buddi, a doll created by the fictitious Kaslan Corporation (insert Google or Apple here) and designed to connect to your internet of things and help you with everything from keeping you on time, to making your lunch, to being your friend. But Andy’s particular doll, who named himself Chucky, is defective, and some of the Kaslan safeguards aren’t working as they should (explained through a fascinating little backstory that makes a great case for improving labor standards in Vietnam, but I digress). At first, Andy has fun with Chucky and even makes a few friends. But soon, Chucky’s actions get out of control and dangerous and even Andy, his best “buddi,” can’t seem to rein him in.
This movie is simply a winner. First, it’s unexpectedly hilarious. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, doesn’t try too hard, and still has many well-placed one-liners. When you’re not laughing at it, you’re laughing with it. And when you’re not laughing, you’re cringing, since it does a great job of reminding you that it’s a horror film with some pretty gnarly gore. Plus, Chucky’s 21st-century improvements
go a long way in making the creepy little doll much more believably terrifying. Once you involve the internet, just think of all the different things you can hijack and make work against you . . . let’s just say, after this film, you won’t look at Alexa or Siri the same way again.
The story is strong—which is quite unexpected for cheesy summer horror—with careful, measured development and a nice, smooth arc. The roles are extremely well-cast, with Plaza playing a convincing young mom, and Gabriel Bateman successfully wielding a full range of tween emotions as Andy to 
prove that Lights Out was just the beginning of his horror career. But the best casting surprise is that Mark Hamill knocks it out of the park as the voice of Chucky—welcome to the dark side, Luke. Plus the slight shift in narrative framing in this reboot—from mom to son—takes timely advantage of the success of shows like Stranger Things and films like It. Call it nostalgia, an 80s culture fad, or simply smart storytelling, but it seems like these days, all you have to do is throw a gang of kids together and tell a story from their point of view, and you’re already on your way to a decent film.
Of course few films are perfect, and this one is no exception. It suffers from some choppy editing yielding a few loose ends, and fails to explain away a few simple solutions to Chucky’s glitches that I’d think any tech hotline could offer. However, given what a delightful surprise the rest of the film is, I’ll excuse those missteps.
SpecialK Verdict: It’s rare that a reboot upstages the original, but I definitely had more fun seeing Child’s Play (2019) than I did trying to stay awake through the 1988 version—I know, I know, blasphemy for sure, but before you throw a fit, give this film a shot and get ready to laugh your butt off.
Child’s Play opened everywhere Friday, June 21.
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