First reactions to Child’s Play say the reboot is flawed but fun

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Thursday preview screenings for Lars Klevberg's CHILD'S PLAY are officially happening later this evening, and first reactions to the murder doll reboot romp have started making their way out into the wild. Rather than present fans with a straight-up rehash of director Tom Holland's 1988 original, Klevberg's take has Chucky arriving as a malfunctioning artificial intelligence companion, capable of monitoring his victims via the world wide web. The choice to abandon Chucky's supernatural nature is a bold one to be sure, and as you'll come to find when reading the excepts below, not everyone was impressed by the result of Klevberg experimenting with such an iconic character hailing from the horror pantheon.

Keith Uhlich of The Hollywood Reporter writes:

"This Child's Play puts a lot of stock in the notion of AI run amok — hardly a new conceit, though one that at least affords some giddily gruesome business during the film's discount-store climax, as Chucky uses his connection to the cloud to make other Buddis do his savage bidding. Nothing on display here beats Bride of Chucky's doll-on-doll sex scene, of course, nor that marvelous moment in the first Child's Play when Chucky's goody-goody expression drops, he hurls some choice invective at poor Catherine Hicks and then exits the scene Trilogy of Terror style. The makeshift nature of [original writer Don] Mancini's originals handily outshines this slick, corporate cash-grab. I'll still give Child's Play redux this: best end-credits song since Gran Torino."

To read Uhlich's full review, click here.

Christian Holub of Entertainment Weekly writes:

"The bigger change is that Child’s Play tries to make Chucky’s evil understandable, relatable even. There is a sequence of events, starting with the Vietnamese worker’s sabotage and continuing through the behaviors Chucky observes from Andy and others, that explains how Chucky comes to commit such violence. But one of the main reasons Dourif’s Chucky was so terrifying was that he was just a relentless, unstoppable psychopath. By giving Chucky a reason to kill, the new movie’s arc can’t help but dilute his menace a bit."

To read Holub's full review, click here.

Peter Debruge of Variety writes:

"Despite all these upgrades, Chucky actually seems less intimidating than before. Part of this can be blamed on the ugly new character design, although he’s really hamstrung by the inevitable limits of an animatronic character’s performance. While the eyes are the only feature that appear to be computer generated, the facial expressions can be confusing, relying on the score to cue us what Chucky is 'thinking.' But when you get down to it, his personality isn’t all that interesting anymore. At least the fact the film doesn’t take itself too seriously can make Child’s Play fun to laugh at — a kind of good-bad movie experience that’s nowhere near as entertaining as that recent Black Mirror episode where Miley Cyrus plays a pop star with a dangerous tie-in toy."

To read Debruge's full review, click here.

Ben Kenigsberg of The New York Times writes:

"In effect, the director Lars Klevberg has delivered a platonic rehash of Fatal Attraction, with a three-foot hunk of plastic in the Glenn Close role. Chucky gets his voice from Mark Hamill, a distinguished vocal actor when not on Jedi duties, which are presumably more fun. This revamped Chucky has a sense of humor, of sorts. He learns his slashing skills from watching the second Texas Chainsaw Massacre and spouts one-liners like 'this is for Tupac' as he stabs. (That reference, like much of the movie, feels way out of date.)"

To read Kenigsberg's full review, click here.

Eric Kohn of Indiewire writes:

“Child’s Play is less self-aware than rote, and even its critical gaze feels half-baked. From the Unfriended series to Like Me, genre movies about the eeriness of the online era have gone deeper, scarier, and had more fun with the creative possibilities that 21st-century technology provide. (Jim Jarmusch’s recent Dead Don’t Die might be blunt in its allegories, but the image of zombies carrying functional cell phones is more potent than anything Klevberg offers up.) Child’s Play at once repudiates Mancini’s franchise by attempting to make it bigger and bolder while falling back on ingredients we’ve seen before, and seen better. While it sets out to skewer the algorithms that could destroy the world, the remake hews to a mechanical formula — and winds up a product of the same tendencies it’s trying to indict."

To read Kohn's full review, click here.

Chris Hewitt of Empire Magazine writes:

"The chief issue is in the reimagining of Chucky himself as a robot doll. Removing the supernatural possession element that powered the original is all well and good, and there are nice ideas about Chucky being able to link up with the cloud and other devices, but they’re never fully explored. More fatally, what we have here is a film populated by people so dense that they don’t take the batteries out of the doll the second it malfunctions. And when that happens, the film soon malfunctions with it."

To read Hewitt's full review, click here.

Megan Navarro of Consequence of Sound writes:

"Child’s Play is pure entertaining fun for the horror fan, but it’s also not much else. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it offer much depth, particularly with its characters. While the cast is amiable enough, they’re mostly surface-level archetypes. Karen is a struggling single mom with bad taste in men, clearly loves her son, and has trouble believing his doll is evil. Andy is the typical sweet outcast, whose hearing aid serves more as an exploit for Chucky than any kind of character point. Elsewhere, there’s the friendly detective, the sleazy boyfriend, and even the tough girl next door. None of them come close to swaying our allegiance away from Chucky."

To read Navarro's full review, click here.

Scott Mendelson of Forbes writes:

"Without overselling it, this is still just a solid three-star horror flick, Child's Play is a platonic ideal for a horror remake. It does its own thing and provides entertainment value both connected to and divorced from its source material. It features strong actors and an emphasis on character over plot even amid the violence. Combined with decent production values and a polished palette, this Child's Play remake is good enough and different enough from what came before to justify its inclusion among the 'traditional' Don Mancini movies. Chucky got lucky, because this Child's Playremake is pretty good, and it'll make a fine double bill with your favorite Child's Play sequel."

To read Mendelson's full review, click here.

Meanwhile, critics and filmmakers across Twitter are also eager to give their take on Chucky's newest playdate:

Here's the official plot synopsis for CHILD'S PLAY:

After moving to a new city, young Andy Barclay receives a special present from his mother — a seemingly innocent Buddi doll that becomes his best friend. When the doll suddenly takes on a life of its own, Andy unites with other neighborhood children to stop the sinister toy from wreaking bloody havoc.

Additionally, be sure to check out our exclusive interviews with the stars of CHILD'S PLAY, including talks with Aubrey Plaza, Gabriel Bateman, and Brian Tyree Henry below:

Oh, and before you ask, of course an official JoBlo review of the film is incoming. As for me, I'll be checking the movie out this weekend alongside the release of Disney and Pixar's TOY STORY 4. I've been a fan of the franchise since the original hit home video, and have both celebrated and suffered through the best and the worst of the sequels. For me, there's plenty of Chucky to go around, and even if Klevberg's version isn't the ideal one, I see the film as just another in a long line of wacky experiments for the franchise. I say bring it on, and give me some of that Aubrey Plaza goodness on the big screen while you're at it.

CHILD'S PLAY is now in theaters.