This vision of Chucky (squint and you might see Hamill’s blue eyes with red hair) is filled out by excellent puppet work, which makes Chucky seem like a full-functioning, believable robot product (except for unfortunate inserts where Chucky is imagined in CG). Hamill has the unenviable task of going up against Brad Dourif’s franchise-defining performance as Chucky, but this version is distinctly different-Hamill’s Chucky is more like a whimsical child (he borrows the soft, high-pitched voice from his work in “ Brigsby Bear”), and doesn't have the venomous misogyny of Dourif's incarnation. The jokes in the script don’t always work, but the film has a strong enough sense of humor that the movie can bank entire sequences with its humor, which helps its more insidious passages stand out even more in comparison. They also help create a little apartment world of lonely people-it’s that not different from Andy’s pain, or even that of Chucky’s. Regarding the latter, Plaza and Tyree Henry bring their deadpan mastery to make “Child’s Play” funny in a surprising way without being campy. “Child’s Play” is one of those rare modern horror remakes that is more inspired than it is soulless, a feeling you get from its grand finale, or even casting. In a larger sense, "Child's Play" creates a fun nightmare out of the “ Toy Story” fantasy-that it’s horrifying to imagine a sentient play-thing like Woody would find a sole purpose in wanting to please their masters, especially if the toy is themselves obsessive and has no sense of boundaries. Here, it’s a kid’s psychological torment that adults are then punished and murdered for. The other manner is that it’s clearly a product of the era that has seen big success with “ It” and “Stranger Things,” basing its horror partly around the unlikelihood that lead kids like Andy and his friends Pugg and Falyn could die. But while this “Child’s Play” starts to feel like another technophobic movie, it gets tension from trying to be slightly more believable as to how a Chucky could happen-no voodoo spells and soul transference here. The original story by Don Mancini gets a 2019 update in two big ways-Chucky is now the product of an Amazon-like group called Kaslan, and is able to connect to nearly anything with a Wi-Fi signal, including TVs, other toys, cars, drones, etc. Instead, he makes Andy’s life hell, and as bodies start to pile up, Andy becomes frantic to get anyone to believe him that it’s the doll who is unleashing such carnage. It’s when people start making Andy unhappy (like Karen's boyfriend Shane ) that Chucky unleashes the carnage you expect, although this time it’s out of love-he wants to protect Andy, so much as to own him. Eventually, Chucky helps Andy befriend two neighboring fellow kids, Pugg ( Ty Consiglio) and Falyn ( Beatrice Kitsos), because Chucky can do goofy things like repeat naughty words. But it’s Chucky (voiced by Mark Hamill) who persists to be in Andy’s life, a doll designed to be your friend no matter what, and they bond during a very Pixar-lookin' montage where Andy shows Chucky how to brush his teeth, or play a board game. In the winking attitude of the movie, Karen was able to get one of the dolls from her department store job because its “eyes were turning red,” and Andy doesn’t even like the present-he’s a little too old for it, and there’s already a sequel on the horizon, the Buddi 2. Directed by Lars Klevberg and written by Tyler Burton Smith, this version tells of a tween named Andy ( Gabriel Bateman) who receives a “Buddi” doll from his mother Karen ( Aubrey Plaza), because he seems only able to make friends with the guy down the hall, Detective Mike ( Brian Tyree Henry).
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