Child's Play (2019)

November 29, 2019 10:18 AM

Karen (Aubrey Plaza), a single mother, gifts her son Andy a Buddi doll for his birthday, unaware of its more sinister nature. A contemporary re-imagining of the 1988 horror classic.
posted by DirtyOldTown (13 comments total)

Changing the doll from being magically possessed to an AI product gone wrong is a good choice. It's different enough to justify an update and an interesting modern twist.

That said, while this movie absolutely succeeds as an update of the original, that is a mixed bag. Just like the original, it's a little cheesey, plenty cheeky, and sort of by the numbers.

Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky is terrific.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:32 AM on November 29, 2019 [2 favorites]

I actually kind of liked it. I saw it on a transatlantic flight, and wasn't expecting much, but thought the malfunctioning AI angle was done really well, alongside a strong cast, and good visual effects. It does seem to run a little bit long, and there are some plot angles that could maybe be cut, but it was altogether an enjoyable little movie.
posted by codacorolla at 12:47 PM on November 29, 2019

I didn't hate it! I think it lacks a lot of the charm of the original, but it has Aubrey Plaza, so it kind of evens out. The AI angle is one of those things that I think will age very poorly (there's a bunch of movies like this now, in the Black Mirror age), but Mark Hamill does a great job. I don't need a sequel, though.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:03 PM on November 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

It did decently at the box office, so (for better or worse) a sequel seems likely. I'd think I'd prefer to just see the creative staff get more money and more freedom for an original picture
posted by codacorolla at 5:15 PM on November 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

Spoilery question for someone who hasn't seen it: did they try turning the switch from "evil" to "good" to fix the AI?
posted by LionIndex at 6:08 AM on November 30, 2019 [4 favorites]

They were lay persons, with no ready access to a neighborhood engineer, a child electronics prodigy, a nerd college student, or a scrappy working class person with a poorly explained ability to nonspecifically "fix things."

So they never even understood exactly what this particular doll's deal even was beyond "this one is fucked up."

It was actually refreshing. Most of us have little choice but to treat sophisticated electronics as essentially unknowable boxes of magic. The folks in the movie were the same way.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:42 AM on November 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yeah but.
posted by LionIndex at 6:47 AM on November 30, 2019

Spoilery question for someone who hasn't seen it: did they try turning the switch from "evil" to "good" to fix the AI?

Sort of the exact opposite. The Buddi doll that is Chucky gets effectively set to 'evil' by a disgruntled and poorly treated factory worker in Vietnam, and then that Chucky infects a whole store of other Buddi products with the same thing.
posted by codacorolla at 7:00 AM on November 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Did they throw a blanket over it and drop it in the tub?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:11 PM on November 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Vietnam, huh? I guess the CPV is far enough removed from the CPC to not get the movie banned from the Chinese market.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:23 PM on December 2, 2019

I had to read a plot synopsis to confirm (this movie is fun, but not exactly the kind of thing that sticks in one's mind) and it's definitely named as Vietnam. The ideas it's referencing with worker suicide in high tech assembly plants definitely seem to be referencing FoxConn, though, so I do wonder if there was any editing for the Chinese market.

I also forgot that the exact thing the worker does is to simply remove all of the safety protocols from the Buddi, which in the movie plays out as the doll doing everything it can to please its owner (the kid) and taking extreme measures to stop those who get in the way. That's actually kind of a clever way to make an AI into a villain, although the movie isn't super invested in exploring that aspect.
posted by codacorolla at 1:21 PM on December 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

As a fan of the original I disliked this. I tried to like it, but no. despite my effort this is not a film I will ever watch again.
posted by miss-lapin at 12:57 AM on December 4, 2019

I can only assume this is what A.I. was going to be before Speilberg took the reins.

Pretty decent for schlock. I watched it because of Aubrey Plaza but the whole cast is good. Even surprised me with Falyn and Pugg going Frog brothers at the end.
posted by rodlymight at 10:37 AM on September 28, 2020