In the summer filled with tons of remakes and sequel, a quite unexpected remake has found its way on to the summer calendar: a remake of the 1988 classic film Child's Play. Although many saw the 2019 film as an "unneeded counterpart to an already known classic", an unsettling teaser and an eye-catching trailer marked the film as one that must be seen upon its release date. From the very first look at the movie, one thing was clear: the film would follow the same structure as the main story, but not much else. Instead, the reason to blame for Chucky's malfunctioning behavior: artificial intelligence. Although this change brings new depth to the film and does have its shining moments, a majority of Child's Play lies in a single problem: it's all the same. The film tells the story of Andy, a socially awkward shy kid who has a hard time fitting into the environments around him. This all comes to a sudden and dramatic change when his mother buys him a "Buddi" doll, a toy with the allure of "becoming your best friend". As Andy and his new doll Chucky build their friendship, Andy learns that not all is what it seems with his best pal. Chucky has a bad side, and doesn't want anyone to stand in the way of him and his best friend. Anyone. The film is insanely entertaining, I'll give it that at least. From the first minute, it's hard to get bored with what's going on on the silver screen, because there always seems to be another twist or turn throughout the film. Aubrey Plaza and the cast deliver decent performances, but the film itself is boggled by a script that doesn't have balance - it is either too comedic, too emotional, or too clichéd to do itself any good. On top of that, the film relies too heavily on jump scares in every possible, as whenever the going gets tough, the film always turns to using a scary Chucky stance to ease the crowd that they are in fact at a horror movie. On top of that, it feels like the movie has tried to replicate the horror style plot of hits Stranger Things and It - make it a group style adventure movie with horror sprinkled in. The problem with the way the film approaches the idea is that every character is so underdeveloped that everything about the movie feels so incomplete, all of the time. Besides that, the film itself is repetitive - it feels like while watching the movie, the viewers are shaken through a constant cycle of the same events repeating over and over again - just with different characters. The film isn't bad by any means, but it becomes a little straining to see the same thing over and over again with no sort of refreshment in between. For a film with this much hype and promise surrounding it, even the littlest of mistakes mark major disappointments. Child's Play is fine for the most part, but the thing that hurts the most: it could have been so much better.
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