Child’s Play is a 2019 horror film directed by Lars Klevberg and written by Tyler Burton Smith, serving as a remake of the 1988 film of the same name and a reboot of the Child’s Play franchise. The film stars Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, and Brian Tyree Henry, with Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky. The plot follows a family terrorized by a high-tech doll who becomes self-aware and subsequently murderous.

This reboot takes away the supernatural element of the soul of a dying criminal taking over a doll byerforming a Haitian Vodou spell and instead uses technology gone bad. Kaslan Corporation has just launched Buddi, a revolutionary line of high-tech dolls designed to be life-long companions to their owners, learning from their surroundings and acting accordingly. Buddi dolls can also connect to and operate other Kaslan products, quickly becoming a success for children worldwide. At a Buddi assembly factory in Vietnam, an employee is fired by his supervisor for insufficient work. In retaliation, the employee manipulates the doll that he is assembling by disabling all of its safety protocols, before committing suicide. The doll is packed alongside others in preparation for international delivery.

The doll is taken by retail clerk Karen Barclay who blackmails her boss to give it as a present to her 13 year old son Andy who is hearing impaired. The doll is defective but once Andy activates the doll, it names itself Chucky and becomes attached to Andy. Over time, Chucky helps Andy befriend two other children in the building – Falyn and Pugg – but also begins to display violent tendencies. Chucky tries to strangle the pet cat after it scratches Andy, and one night, while Andy and his friends gleefully watch a horror film, Chucky starts mimicking the violence on the screen and approaches the trio with a kitchen knife before Andy disarms him. The next day the cat is killed but a tearful Andy hides the body. Karen locks the doll in a closet, but he escapes and terrorizes her boyfriend Shane, which leads Shane to confront Andy. After overhearing Andy’s pleas for Shane to disappear, after he is bullied by the man, Chucky follows Shane to his house where we find that he actually has a wife and kids.

While Shane is outside taking down Christmas lights, Chucky breaks his leg before activating a tiller which scalps and kills him. The following day, Chucky delivers Shane’s skinned face as a gift to a horrified Andy. While police detective Mike Norris begins an investigation, Andy, Falyn and Pugg disable Chucky and dispose of him in the garbage. Building voyeur and electrician Gabe finds the doll and takes him to the building’s basement to prepare him for online sale. Now fully repaired, Chucky tortures and murders Gabe with a table saw. Chucky lands in the possession of another kid in the building named Omar, and proceeds to kill Mike’s mother Doreen in a controlled car crash. Meanwhile, Andy fails to convince Karen that Chucky has become murderous, and she takes Andy along to her next shift at her shopping mall workplace in order to keep him nearby. Mike travels to the mall and apprehends him just as Chucky takes full control of the building causing chaos.

Mike is wounded amid the massacre, and Andy and his friends manage to reach the exit, only for Andy to be forced to return when Chucky reveals that he is holding Karen hostage with intent to kill her. Andy manages to free his mother while being attacked by Chucky, before overpowering and defeating the doll with help from Karen and Mike. While paramedics tend Karen, Mike and other survivors, Andy and the rest of his friends destroy Chucky’s lifeless body in a nearby alleyway. Kaslan Corporation CEO Henry Kaslan issues a statement regarding Chucky’s programming. As more Buddi dolls are shown being recalled and placed into storage, one starts malfunctioning inside its box.

While an interesting new twist, the movie llacks the charm of the original 1988 film. I think with Andy being played by a younger kid who actually plays with dolls and Chucky wanting to kill Andy and take over his body makes it more dangerous and creepy. I give this one a 6.5 outta 10 as Hamill does a fine voice acting job.