The seventh installment of the Child's Play franchise introduces some interesting, albeit hamfisted in ideas. We got a brief glimpse of this at the end of Curse when Chucky was performing the soul spell on Alice, and then showing up at Andy's place in the box.
The payoff from that last bit comes immediately, as the movie opens with Andy having Chucky's head in a safe, a quarter of it blown off from the shotgun he had pointed at him and fired off when the screen went black, along with some interesting patch work to keep Chucky's head relatively together.
It's been four years, and Andy has been taking justice out in his own way, suffice at the expense of having any kind of real life. We get a slight insight into this, but unfortunately little more than that. By the end of the movie, you might be wishing this had gone in a similar vein, but instead had focused on Andy's attempts to stop Chucky.
Sadly, the movie then moves to Nica, Chucky's daughter. What follows is a bunch of typical, cliché "You're nuts, but you're not really nuts, but everyone tells you you're nuts" psychiatric schlock. And the interesting twist to the series is slowly poked at and introduced.
Chucky, with some help from Tilly, makes his way into the hospital that Nica is being held in. But wait, how can he be there if Andy has his head? Well, as is eventually revealed, Chucky can now split himself into other dolls, and other people.
This is a neat, but as I said, hamfisted idea. How he came about this is passed away by his claim that he found a new spell in a voodoo for dummies book a few years ago, basically. And that's it. There's no touching on how in the hell his soul can be put, fully, into multiple dolls. But it is. And each doll literally seems to be a full, new Chucky, acting the same, same murderous intent, so on and so forth.
There's a lot of implications here, and a ton of questions that people with a thirst for sci-fi and theology might have. But, again, it's glossed over very quickly and is basically a "He can do this because the plot requires it" type of thing.
Even sadder, Chucky does not really get to shine until there's only about 18 minutes left in the film. There's brief snippets of him and his unique humor and homicidal tendencies, yes, but he doesn't go nuts, so to speak, and break out until right near the end. This is quite different from Curse, where when he revealed himself and started his killings, there was still a good chunk of movie left for him to do that in.
This causes a rather uneven tone. While there is blood leading up to this, it's quite obviously subdued for the most part. However, once Chucky makes his big reveal, the blood and gore amps up quite noticeably, and a lot of kills are stuffed into the film rather quickly.
The first scene with the multiple Chucky's together, thankfully, is quite hilarious. But again, it does show a lot of missed opportunity here, had Chucky revealed things sooner.
How the movie ultimately ends also brings up a hell of a lot of questions as to how the franchise is going to be, moving forward. The implication seems to be that Chucky as we have known him for seven films will NOT be returning, so.
It's not a bad film, persay, it's just that it's not quite as great as Curse was. The hospital Nica is in and that much of the film takes place in is weirdly well furnished, and seems very well maintained, despite the outside of it looking run down as hell. It also has a VERY sterile look and feel to everything. Seriously, damn near everything is white as can be. It's a stark change from the darkness of Curse.
Ultimately, the movie doesn't reach the levels the first two managed to attain, and doesn't have near enough Chucky being Chucky. It introduces some ideas, but doesn't elaborate on them well enough.
Here's hoping that it does well enough with its release that yet another one is made, and that it doesn't take quite as long, and that it returns to the format that made Curse such a surprisingly good sequel, while improving on what flaws that movie had as well.
The payoff from that last bit comes immediately, as the movie opens with Andy having Chucky's head in a safe, a quarter of it blown off from the shotgun he had pointed at him and fired off when the screen went black, along with some interesting patch work to keep Chucky's head relatively together.
It's been four years, and Andy has been taking justice out in his own way, suffice at the expense of having any kind of real life. We get a slight insight into this, but unfortunately little more than that. By the end of the movie, you might be wishing this had gone in a similar vein, but instead had focused on Andy's attempts to stop Chucky.
Sadly, the movie then moves to Nica, Chucky's daughter. What follows is a bunch of typical, cliché "You're nuts, but you're not really nuts, but everyone tells you you're nuts" psychiatric schlock. And the interesting twist to the series is slowly poked at and introduced.
Chucky, with some help from Tilly, makes his way into the hospital that Nica is being held in. But wait, how can he be there if Andy has his head? Well, as is eventually revealed, Chucky can now split himself into other dolls, and other people.
This is a neat, but as I said, hamfisted idea. How he came about this is passed away by his claim that he found a new spell in a voodoo for dummies book a few years ago, basically. And that's it. There's no touching on how in the hell his soul can be put, fully, into multiple dolls. But it is. And each doll literally seems to be a full, new Chucky, acting the same, same murderous intent, so on and so forth.
There's a lot of implications here, and a ton of questions that people with a thirst for sci-fi and theology might have. But, again, it's glossed over very quickly and is basically a "He can do this because the plot requires it" type of thing.
Even sadder, Chucky does not really get to shine until there's only about 18 minutes left in the film. There's brief snippets of him and his unique humor and homicidal tendencies, yes, but he doesn't go nuts, so to speak, and break out until right near the end. This is quite different from Curse, where when he revealed himself and started his killings, there was still a good chunk of movie left for him to do that in.
This causes a rather uneven tone. While there is blood leading up to this, it's quite obviously subdued for the most part. However, once Chucky makes his big reveal, the blood and gore amps up quite noticeably, and a lot of kills are stuffed into the film rather quickly.
The first scene with the multiple Chucky's together, thankfully, is quite hilarious. But again, it does show a lot of missed opportunity here, had Chucky revealed things sooner.
How the movie ultimately ends also brings up a hell of a lot of questions as to how the franchise is going to be, moving forward. The implication seems to be that Chucky as we have known him for seven films will NOT be returning, so.
It's not a bad film, persay, it's just that it's not quite as great as Curse was. The hospital Nica is in and that much of the film takes place in is weirdly well furnished, and seems very well maintained, despite the outside of it looking run down as hell. It also has a VERY sterile look and feel to everything. Seriously, damn near everything is white as can be. It's a stark change from the darkness of Curse.
Ultimately, the movie doesn't reach the levels the first two managed to attain, and doesn't have near enough Chucky being Chucky. It introduces some ideas, but doesn't elaborate on them well enough.
Here's hoping that it does well enough with its release that yet another one is made, and that it doesn't take quite as long, and that it returns to the format that made Curse such a surprisingly good sequel, while improving on what flaws that movie had as well.
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