However, it’s not Child’s Play or Mancini’s Chucky at the heart of this AI update, leaving you to ask a simple question: was this film necessary?
Don Mancini’s superb Chucky took his first breath under the stewardship of director Tom Holland in 1988, bringing our collective childhood nightmares to life as an innocent toy became a ravenous serial killer. Since then, Chucky has become a cult figure, starring in seven feature films; therefore, it was somewhat of a surprise to hear that the original movie would receive a fresh update. After all, how could you possibly improve the original? But here we are, the deed is done, so the question is, does it work?
It’s fair to say Child’s Play 2019 was somewhat of a surprise if you try to view it as a completely separate entity from all the films that have come before it; after all, this is not a Don Mancini flick and does not embrace the history or family behind the Chucky movies. But if you explore Child’s Play 2019 as something new, it does hold some sharp, funny, and genuinely creative traits. Here, director Lars Klevberg places human responsibility and emerging artificial intelligence centre stage in a movie that has no intention of copying the original.
In a not-too-distant future where our homes have become interconnected media hubs, Buddi is an automated and intelligent friend for children. Buddi helps with their homework while recording their interactions and sending the valuable data to their cloud-based makers through their big blue eyes. However, Buddi, like nearly all our tech, is manufactured using slave labour in developing countries, leaving the tech vulnerable to some rewiring by a disgruntled employee.
The faulty doll, whose eyes are now deep red, finds its way into the home of single mum Karen (Aubrey Plaza) and her son Andy (Gabriel Bateman). However, as the Buddi doll finds a reluctant young carer in pre-teen Andy, he also develops an unregulated view of human life, where anyone who threatens his young master is fair game.
Elements of Child’s Play 2019 are delightfully tongue-in-cheek, subverting many aspects of the Chucky story. Here, the absolute horror lies in human hands as we feed the technology surrounding us. Equally, performances are engaging throughout, with Gabriel Bateman providing a pre-teen Andy who sits in the no-man ‘s-land between childhood and teenage life. At the same time, Mark Hamill’s Buddi/Chucky efficiently manages the leap from a cheery childhood friend to a sinister plastic killer.
However, it’s not Child’s Play or Mancini’s Chucky, which leaves you asking a simple question: was this film necessary? The answer to that is genuinely more complex than Buddi’s AI interface.
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