Child's Play
Orion Pictures | Release Date: June 21, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
18
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJun 20, 2019
This re-imagining of Chucky’s origins manages to be both crazier and more level-headed than the original, in which the doll strolled around Chicago talking like a gangster from “Guys and Dolls.” Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJun 20, 2019
If your humour skews towards the sick and twisted, then this box-fresh Child’s Play will give you one almighty kick. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 20, 2019
Child’s Play bubbles with entertaining bad taste. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyJun 27, 2019
It’s a winking, self-aware horror movie that will make you laugh even when things are drenched in blood. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comNick AllenJun 21, 2019
This Child’s Play is nastier, more playful, and just as good if not better than the original film. Read full review
75
Original-CinThom ErnstJun 20, 2019
The result is a surprisingly entertaining, gory delight. Even hard-lined horror abstainers can comfortably enjoy the film’s grim humour and excessively over-the-top carnage. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Chandler LevackJun 20, 2019
Like every classic toy, the franchise has been remodelled in hopes of customer satisfaction. Luckily, this smarter, funnier Child’s Play actually works. Read full review
70
Film ThreatLorry KiktaJun 24, 2019
It’s a darkly funny allegory about technology with awesome practical gore. Read full review
67
ConsequenceMeagan NavarroJun 20, 2019
Child’s Play is pure entertaining fun for the horror fan, but 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. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshJun 20, 2019
This is a brutally violent reset on the '80s franchise that ultimately became a punchline, but while it goes big on gore and atmosphere, Child's Play doesn't muster up any actual scares. Read full review
62
IGNRosie KnightJun 20, 2019
Child's Play is a passable but plain remake that's saved by a blisteringly bonkers third act. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Simran HansJun 23, 2019
There are some gory moments (a man’s leg is sliced, the flesh falling off like meat from a rotisserie, and a sleazy character has a grisly encounter with a lawnmower), but the film extracts more laughs than genuine scares. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJun 20, 2019
For those of us old enough to have been terrorised the first time round, it delivers a nasty-but-nice-enough childhood flashback. Read full review
60
TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanJun 20, 2019
The movie’s biggest strength is its balance between mordant humor and psychological fear. Read full review
58
The Film StageJared MobarakJun 21, 2019
Child’s Play becomes a matter-of-fact A-to-B progression devoid of wiggle room where obstacles manifest as physical impediments to survival instead of narrative blockades to our understanding of what’s happening. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubCharles BramescoJun 20, 2019
As an enchanted talisman housing a depraved mind, Chucky was born one-of-a-kind. As nothing more than a glitching machine, he lacks the sniggling spirit that made him special. He’s been mass-produced. Read full review
58
IndieWireEric KohnJun 20, 2019
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. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChristian HolubJun 20, 2019
By giving Chucky a reason to kill, the new movie’s arc can’t help but dilute his menace a bit. Read full review
50
UproxxVince ManciniJan 2, 2020
In a lot of ways, Child’s Play seems like a good idea that the people involved didn’t have either the time or the talent to execute properly. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Angelica Jade BastienJun 21, 2019
Unfortunately, Child’s Play is undone by a lack of tension even its best performances can’t conjure, and a familiar story that only skips lightly along the surface of gnarly ideas. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineDerek SmithJun 20, 2019
By the end, it becomes what it initially parodies: a dime-a-dozen slasher film with a silly-looking doll as the villain. Read full review
50
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoJun 20, 2019
Your enjoyment of Child's Play will depend on if "Chucky 2.0" is funny enough for your horror comedy tastes, because without investment in Kaslan's "Buddi," there's not much to appreciate beyond a few gnarly slasher deaths. Read full review
40
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 21, 2019
The gore, which is plentiful, grows repetitive and dull. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJun 20, 2019
Not helping matters is dead-eyed snark source Aubrey Plaza, somehow less expressive than the doll itself (creepily voiced by Mark Hamill). Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJun 20, 2019
Fans of the real-deal Chucky movies, with their cheerfully low-rent effects and bawdy, impish humor, may well regard this slick new offering as a desecration masquerading as an upgrade. Which is not to say that this Child’s Play is entirely without its brutish, haphazard pleasures. Read full review
40
CNNBrian LowryJun 20, 2019
The problem is that those pulling Child's Play's strings don't consistently commit to anything other than the gore. Read full review
40
EmpireChris Hewitt (1)Jun 20, 2019
Making a killer-doll movie out of decent component parts should have been child’s play, but this misses the mark. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKeith UhlichJun 20, 2019
Stem to stern, this 88-minute slasher runs like the clockwork bit of machinery it is, and that baseline competence effectively leeches it of personality. Read full review
40
VarietyPeter DebrugeJun 20, 2019
This is the new normal for horror movies: The screenplays have to seem hipper than the premise they represent, which puts “Child’s Play” in the weird position of pointing out and poking fun at all the ways it fails to make sense. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 21, 2019
Child’s Play is perfunctory. Read full review
33
The PlaylistGriffin SchillerJun 21, 2019
While the reboot possesses a campy charm that advanced ironists are bound to find entertaining, an eerily effective score from Bear McCreary and a scene-stealing performance by Brian Tyree Henry, none of this is remotely enough to make up for a sheer lack of imagination. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJun 20, 2019
Worst of all, its mix of horror and comedy never walks the tightrope of shrieking absurdism that the originals did at their peak (and it's easy to forget that they started as a straight horror franchise). Instead, it ends up with the off-putting meanspiritedness of late-era Charles Band, the king of 2000s straight-to-video exploitation. Read full review
25
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 22, 2019
Although Child’s Play is only 90 minutes long, it’s one of those movies where you check your watch so often you think it has stopped. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedJun 21, 2019
It’s just tired, desperate and preposterous. Read full review
20
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergJun 20, 2019
In trying to build a smarter Chucky, the filmmakers have assembled something unfathomably dumb. Read full review
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