Spider-Man: Brand New Day and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
Who doesn’t love good ol’ Spider-Man? Well if the box office is anything to go by, then the answer is no one, because this thing is making money like nobody’s business; certainly more than anything Disney has put out recently. Heck, even Toy Story 5’s billion dollar haul pales in comparison to the numbers that Spider-Man is putting up! Does the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler live up to the hype and truckloads of money in this latest outing, or are we all so desperate for any Spider-Man movie that we’ll take a mediocre one? Let’s find out!!
Following the events on No Way Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has taken to his job of Spider-Man with gusto; foregoing any relationship that doesn’t involve punching and webbing, and pining for the life he no longer has which only becomes more difficult when his former friends Ned and MJ (Jacob Batalon and Zendaya) move back to town. Couple this with a new threat in the city that can seemingly control the minds of anyone they want, and we’ve got the recipe for a Spider-Meltdown which manifests as bizarre powers that Peter can hardly control. Will Peter have to lose himself to become the Spider-Man the city needs to fend off this newest threat? Can he finally come to terms with what he lost and start his life anew, or do the echoes of his past guide him to be the best hero he can be? Will the movie answer these questions and more while also giving us awesome ninja fights!?
It’s funny how things work out sometimes. You wouldn’t think that Disney and Nolan releasing movies back-to-back would make for an interesting double feature, but there are some unavoidable similarities between their latest tent pole blockbusters. Both are oceanic adventures that are adaptions that are heavily influenced by mythology, albeit from vastly different cultures, and the biggest difference seems to be that one was an overwhelming success while the other is slowly crawling its way to making its budget back. Can we figure out why one succeeded where the other failed, or are the audiences as fickle as the whims of the gods in these movies? Let’s find out!!
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The Odyssey is owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Following the Trojan War, the king of Ithaca Odysseus (Matt Damon) must make a long journey back to his home where his wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus (Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland), have been waiting for some time. The path proves to be treacherous, however, as Odysseus and his crew are thrown off course and must face a series of terrifying trials and outlandish endeavors if they have any hope of getting back to their island in one piece. In that time, a series of suitors have attempted to take Penelope’s hand, chief among them the duplicitous Antinous (Robert Pattinson), which has brought Odysseus’s family and the island itself to brink of violence and ruin. Can Odysseus fight against the elements, the creatures, and even the Gods themselves that stand in his way, or is the fate of Ithaca no longer in his hands?
I find Christopher Nolan to be a frustrating director as he makes interesting movies with an astounding level of craftsmanship, but he never seems able or willing to move his audience at an emotional level. He wows them with his spectacle and imbues his characters with pathos and motivation, but at the end of the day, he leaves us with something that feels cold and mechanical; a beautifully crafted tin-man who’s dying for a heart. The bombastic nature of Greek Mythology has at least given him a strong foundation to tell an epic story, but Nolan seems uncomfortable with Homer’s more unsavory aspects and has drained a lot of the hot blooded machismo out of it which is frustrating, but also winds up being very funny. There are several points I found myself laughing at this movie when it was clearly trying to be serious and portentous with material that is unavoidably shlocky. I suppose this gives it something of a unique flavor as Nolan and humor are rarely found at the same table, but I never found myself swept away by the action or drama given how drained and morosely it all plays out. For a film that’s as long as this is, it settles into its groove far too early and rarely surpasses the excitement of its earliest encounters.
As for mythology nerds, he does capture the individual adventures with a panache that will surely make this fun viewing for high school English classes, and there was at least one sequence involving a forest that took my breath away, so I wouldn’t call it boring even if it does feel rather one note. I’m also mixed on the ending which at least shows some ambition from Nolan to put all of this in a modern context and try to make it relevant for today’s audience, but I don’t think he pulls it off and it ends up highlighting the movie’s biggest flaw which is that I don’t find this version of Odysseus compelling. Sure, it’s a very flexible character and can played many different ways, but the film tries a little too hard to make us sympathize with him which ends up clashing with Nolan’s ideas for the broader story. You can say what you will about the problematic nature of Homeric violence, but the story was crafted with that framing in mind, and trying to turn fights with soldiers, battles of wits with monsters, and faring the treacherous seas into a melancholic exploration of man’s inhumanity to man puts a huge damper on the movie. It leaves us with a character that is far more upstanding if you were looking for a good role model, but far less compelling if you wanted an engaging character. I can’t put this on Damon who is giving Nolan exactly what he wants from this idea of the character, but his well-rounded dad performance leaves us without any interesting sharp edges. Thankfully, the rest of the cast doesn’t feel as locked into Nolan’s vision and have a little more room to play with their roles. Pattinson continues to be one of the best actors working today and is a lot of fun as a sniveling schemer, while Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway equip themselves admirably for the larger than life operatics that a story like this calls for. Frankly, all the Ithaca stuff ends up working far better than the journey itself, but I guess that means we have a decent balance between engaging interplay between characters and spectacle driven adventures; though it’d be nice if the latter had a little more of the former.
Nolan is a great filmmaker, but he always seems to be a step behind his more interesting contemporaries. You can see quite a bit of Eggers in this, but he usually filled his movies with a dark sense of humor which this movie is lacking. There’s a good chunk of David Lowery’s Green Knight in here, but where that felt like a brilliantly realized art-film, this has too much of the blockbuster mindset to really get as strange as that was. Nolan’s just too much of a studio creature to give us the auteur edge that’s desperately needed here, and so we’re left with a handsomely put together straight-faced retelling of a classic story. In a lot of ways, it ends up being a great companion piece to Del Toro’s Frankenstein movie, but where that feels rigidly faithful out of an abundance of love, this feels stiflingly straightforward out of an adherence to rigor. Nolan certainly has his admirers who have always appreciated his po-faced approach to filmmaking, and I’m certainly a fan of a number of his films, but I could have used a little more yearning in a story about trying to get back home.
Uncharted and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
The quest for the truly great video game movie has felt like a moot point for years now; especially since people are rediscovering some of those old nineties films and realizing that they were actually pretty good. Mortal Kombat is well regarded for its fun action and interesting aesthetic (certainly more so than its 2021 counterpart) and I still maintain that the Super Mario Bros movie is an unsung classic of the dystopian sci-fi genre. Heck, even with the more recent films like Detective Pikachu, a good chunk of the Resident Evil movies, and arguably Sonic the Hedgehog, it’s hard to say with a straight face that we’re still waiting for someone to “get it right” when there are plenty of examples we can point to that are more than watchable. Now it’s time for Sony’s big cinematic money maker for the PlayStation to try and prove that it can be a good movie in its own right instead of just mimicking big-budget adventure films. Will it be another feather in the game industry’s cap as far as film adaptations, or will this be as quickly forgotten as that Tomb Raider movie from a few years ago? Let’s find out!!
Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) is a lovable crook in the heart of New York as he steals his way through a meager life because how else are you going to afford rent there? He has aspirations of… I guess being Indiana Jones at one point, but it’s not until some shady guy named Sully (Mark Wahlberg) offers him a job that his career as an adventurer finally gets off the ground. With promises of an impossibly large treasure as well as clues to what happened to his missing brother Sam, Nathan jet sets around the world to solve the mystery of Magellan’s lost gold! With the help of an associate of Sully’s named Chloe (Sophia Ali), can this unlikely team manage to find the treasure before ruthless businessman Santiago (Antonio Banderas) and his crew of even more ruthless mercenaries led by Jo (Tati Gabrielle) can take it for themselves? Who is this Sully guy anyway, and is he being forthright with everything he knows about Sam? Does Nathan have any idea what he set himself up for? I mean there are at least four games I could have shown him to give him a clue before he agreed to this ridiculous adventure.
Spider-Man: No Way Home and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Jon Watts
It’s been a rather underwhelming year for the superhero genre which once towered over the world. The Pandemic has pushed the release schedule around several times which means we’re waiting longer for these movies, and to me, the MCU is having trouble finding their voice after Endgame put a pretty definitive end to the original story arc. Frankly, the best we’ve gotten from the MCU in the last two years have been the Disney+ shows that may not always hit their marks but definitely have a lot of interesting ideas that probably wouldn’t work as a movie; even with these things being overly long for the most part. Still, it’s hard not to get excited about another Spider-Man film; especially one as specifically targeted to my generation as this one is. Does it manage to pull us out of the MCU funk and deliver on all the ludicrous promises the trailers have made, or is this going to be as convoluted and pointless as the Clone Saga; or even worse, One More Day? Let’s find out!!
Following the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has been revealed to the world as their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and this newfound celebrity (and infamy) has thrown his life into chaos. Investigations from the government, a bunch of weirdos throwing bricks through his windows, and a very awkward school environment where half of them want to see him become their mascot and the other are hurling conspiracy-laden insults at him. See, this is why you need to be rich or a soldier to do the Superhero thing; either commit to it full time or pay people to go outside for you! It gets to be such a burden that Peter begs the MCU’s cool uncle Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to use his wizard magic to erase his identity from the mind of everyone in the universe. Let’s just say that it had mixed results as the world doesn’t forget his identity, but there are now a bunch of villains running around who seem to know him; including Doctor Otto Octavius who has four robot arms (Alfred Molina), Max Dillon who has electricity powers (Jamie Foxx), Dr. Curt Connors who’s a lizard man (Rhys Ifans) Flint Marko who spends most of the movie as a human-shaped sandcastle for whatever reason (Thomas Haden Church), and of course Norman Osborne who still suffers from pretty severe mood swings (Willem Dafoe). Now if you’ve kept up with the Spider-Man films for the last twenty years, those names should seem pretty familiar. Sadly the Spider-Man of this universe didn’t get to see those movies, so he has to discover who all these people are, why they became villains in the first place, and if this confluence of inter-dimensional fan service can actually turn into a good thing for all involved. Will Peter Parker, with the help of his friends, his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), and his sorta-bodyguard Happy (Jon Favreau), be able to stop these guys from tearing apart this universe and perhaps even get past their overwhelming hatred of wall-crawling superheroes? Who else may have found their way into this universe, and what can they do to either help or hamper Peter’s attempts to fix everything? So is J Jonah Jameson (JK Simmons) also an inter-dimensional buzzkill, or is there no universe that can escape his ludicrous conspiracy theories and get-rich-quick schemes?
Venom: Let There Be Carnage and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Andy Serkis
The first Venom movie wasn’t exactly a cult classic, but it did have a lot more fun with the formula and with the characters than I expected it to. Still, trying to figure out what to do with the character for a second movie, especially since we’re STILL keeping it away from anything Spider-Man related, could easily upset the balance and stretch the joke further than it can go. The trailers definitely seem to be having a lot of fun with the formula which may be the right way to try and make lightning strike twice, and Andy Serkis is definitely an interesting choice for director, so who knows? Is this a campy and fun romp that captures the Venom magic for a second time, or did our luck run out when the first movie turned out to be not-terrible? Let’s find out!!
Following the events of the first film, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) has settled into a routine with the symbiotic space goo that resides in his body and the two are trying to get his journalism career up and running again with this big story of captured serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) who for whatever reason has taken an interest in the reporter. After a particularly heated discussion between the two of them that ends in a small amount of bloodshed, Kasady somehow gets a bit of the symbiote in him as well and to his utter surprise, it saves him from the death penalty so that he can roam the streets of San Francisco; leaving untold CARNAGE wherever he goes! Oh, but this is no mindless murderer with a one track mind as Kasady has bigger plans involving a friend from childhood who JUST SO HAPPENS to have super powers (Naomie Harris) and has been locked in a secret super-prison that would normally be impenetrable but Kasady’s new powers intend to put that to the test. All while this is going on, Eddie and Venom are going through some growing pains in their relationship as Venom wants to be free to save the world and eat people in spite of Brock’s attempts to keep him safe and hidden; all of which comes to ahead once they learn that Eddie’s ex Anne (Michelle Williams) is engaged which brings whole new dimensions of stress between them. Can Eddie and Venom put aside their differences long enough to stop Kasady from wreaking havoc on the city? What exactly does Kasady have planned after reuniting with his childhood love, and does the symbiote in his body have anything to say about it? You’d think it wouldn’t be THAT hard to keep a space parasite happy when all it really needs is food and validation, but I guess that’s the troublesome nature of relationships and a square peg just won’t fit in a round hole no matter how hard you try.
“I go through ALL this trouble to make you breakfast, and you won’t even eat it!?” “You’ve got like six thousand calories and eight hundred carbs here!” “VENOM CARES NOT FOR YOUR DIET!” “But-” “EVERY DAY IS A CHEAT DAY TO VENOM!!”Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Venom: Let There Be Carnage”→
The Devil All the Time and all the images you see in this review are owned by Netflix
Directed by Antonio Campos
It looks like Warner Bros non-stop protestations that movies and movie theaters are back has failed to materialize as the world is still ravaged by a pandemic and studios are still shy about putting anything out to overwhelmingly empty theaters. I guess it means we’re going back to the Netflix well once again which is perfectly fine as we ALL need to do our part to keep people safe, and they’ve been putting out a steady stream of original movies so I’m pretty much spoiled for choice until the world decides to reopen again. So with the breadth of Netflix’s catalog in front of me, which one do I choose? Well it was either Cuties or the new movie with Robert Pattinson, and as much as I hear good things about Cuties (and hear bad things from the absolute WORST people about it), I had to stick with my main man Robbie P and see what he’s up to! Does this movie satiate the listless masses for another week of perpetual lockdown, or does the dour tone of this movie hit a bit TOO close to home right now? Let’s find out!!
Arvin Russell (Tom Holland) is your typical sweet kid from the country with a definite chip on his shoulder. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, but given enough of a push he can be convinced to take serious action against those who slighted him and his family. Perhaps he got that mean streak in him when he was a kid (Michael Banks) and his father (Bill Skarsgård) used to do the same thing. Perhaps it has to do with his mother (Haley Bennett) who died of cancer when he was young and the… interesting actions his father took during that time. Still, he doesn’t have much to complain about considering he lives with his loving grandma (Kristin Griffith) and… let’s go with half-sister Lenora (Eliza Scanlen) and leave it at that. To get into the specifics there is something I’ll leave the movie to explain, but needless to say that things are pretty good for him, and as long as they aren’t surrounded by a bunch of terrible people to set Arvin off, things will go just fine for them! Well I hate to break it to you, but there are some bad people in this little town and Arvin is stuck right in the middle; between the devils all around him and the devils within himself. Does the world push Arvin to take drastic measures to restore order in the face of injustice, and can one man survive in a world full of bad people? What will Arvin lose of himself in this story of pain, loss, and vengeance, and is there any sort of light at the end of the tunnel once he’s found the justice he seeks? This sounds like a superhero origin story, though PROBABLY not the one that Holland usually plays.
Onward and all the images you see in this review are owned by Pixar and Walt Disney Studio Motion PIctures
Directed by Dan Scanlon
It’s no secret that I’ve been pretty down on Pixar this past decade. On the one hand, we DID get Coco and I guess Inside Out was just fine, but this was also the decade that brought us redundant sequels that I just failed to connect with; particularly Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4 which everyone else seemed to enjoy a heck of a lot more than I did. Because of this and the somewhat underwhelming trailers we got (It’s fantasy AND modern AT THE SAME TIME!?), I’m not exactly looking forward to seeing this kid friendly version of Bright, but that’s just the pessimistic side of me talking and maybe this really will be another return to form for the venerable studio. Is this a road trip for the ages and the sequel to Brütal Legend we’ve all been secretly hoping for, or is this a mythical folly more disastrous than that Warcraft movie you’ve already forgotten about? Let’s find out!!
Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) is your typical Elf teenager; aspiring to be Legolas but more like The Elf on a Shelf. He’s gangly, really quiet, and to some people he might come off as a bit creepy considering his lack of social skills. VERY different from his brother Barley (Chris Pratt) who is basically the unholy offspring (in the cool Rock N Roll sort of way) of Andy Dwyer and Jack Black; spending most of his times talking theatrically, creating cool-tastic stories for his knock off D&D campaigns, and decidedly not getting a job or moving out. Some of his arrested development issues as well as Ian’s social anxieties can be traced back to their father who died of an illness right before Ian was born, and there’s a lot of unhandled baggage there despite the efforts of their mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus ) to make a happy home and the stern if bumbling guidance of their mom’s new boyfriend Officer Bronco (Mel Rodriguez). On Ian’s sixteenth birthday however, that all changes when their mother gives him a gift from his late father that she was instructed to hold off on until this day, and it turns out that their dad was a wizard who came up with a spell to bring him BACK FROM THE DEAD for one day so that he can see how great his sons turned out. Sure! Just ask the Elric brothers how well this worked out for them! Well it KIND of works out as Ian is only able to bring back the bottom half of their dad and they now need to go on an EPIC QUEST TO FIND A NEW GEM FOR MAGIC STAFF, and cast the REST of the spell before the 24 hours are up. Can Ian and Barley find the mythical Phoenix Gem and see their father one last time? Who exactly WAS their father and how far does Ian want to go with these new magic gifts that he’s discovered? Will Barley put him through the Rocky Training Montage of his life!? He certainly has the right music for it!
“You’ve gotta say it bro!” “Sigh… This is my big staff, this is my wand. This is for casting, this is for fun…”
Dolittle and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by Stephen Gaghan
My GOODNESS have studios been putting out some high priced nonsense recently! We are definitely stuck in the Billion Dollar Blockbuster Bubble where every studio wants nothing but the most expensive movies to maximize their profits, but as is the nature with bubbles all the money Is usually dried up by the time everyone else tries to get in on it which is why Disney is still sitting pretty on their mountain of gold and everyone else is making stuff like Cats and that awful Tarzan movie. With this being the current trend, someone making an overpriced adventure film about Dr. Doolittle feels almost inevitable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be bad! I LOVE me some overpriced entertainment like Jupiter Ascending and Final Fantasy XIII, so maybe Dr. Doolittle being played by Iron Man and co-starring a wrestler as a CGI polar bear is just what I need to cleanse the palate and finally kick off the GOOD parts of 2020 which so far has been pretty plodding at the multiplex! Is this retelling of the classic story the start of another beloved blockbuster franchise, or are we in for a disaster to rival even that of Cats!? Let’s find out!!
Taking place AFTER what I presume is the actual Dr. Dolittle story, we find that the intrepid physician who can talk to animals (Robert Downey Jr) has gone fully Will Wonka and is holed up inside his giant wildlife preserve; refusing to see any visitors, human or otherwise. That all changes when one day, out of PURE LUCK, he gets TWO visitors who insist on seeing him! The first is Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado) who is on assignment from the Queen despite being all of twelve years old, and Tommy (Harry Collett) who shot a squirrel and has brought the wounded creature to Dolittle because he feels bad. Lady Rose is there to inform him that the Queen is dying and requires his help which he reluctantly agrees to, and determines that she’s dying of McGuffin’s Disease which can only be cured by a fabled fruit on an uncharted island, so he takes some of his animals friends (Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, and Octavia Spencer just to name a few) on a boat to get the fruit and save the Queen; hoping that once this is finished he can go back to brooding in his house all day. Oh, and Tommy is coming along too because… he loves animals too I guess? Will the Dolittle Crew get to the magic fruit in time to save the Queen? What challenges will they face along the way, and will some of it be intentional sabotage? If one of the cats from Cats was in this movie, would Dolittle be the only one who could talk to it!?
“So what you’re saying is that never was there ever a cat as clever as Magical Mister Mistoffelees?” … “What is that it? I mean sure, throwing your voice is a skill but I wouldn’t call it MAGICAL.”
Spider-Man: Far From Home and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Jon Watts
Well now that we’re FINALLY done with Thanos (and James Gunn is back on Guardians 3), we can finally get things back on track, right? I mean sure, we needed a nice big climatic sendoff for the big stars that helped bring this franchise to life, but now that the party’s over things have got to keep going without them and the MCU, if they’ve done NOTHING else, have managed to create something that can go on even after closing the book on some of its biggest characters. Still, there’s a big ol’ elephant in the room (or perhaps SPIDER-PIG in the room!) called Into the Spider-Verse that came out between the last Tom Holland film and this one which frankly blew Homecoming out of the water. Homecoming is still great, but Into the Spider-Verse? Woo boy is that a hard act to follow! Can this Post Thanos and Post Spider-Verse entry into the MCU cement itself as the first step to the future of this franchise, or have we already seen the best this version of the hero has to offer and will be left wanting for something more? Let’s find out!!
So hey! That whole… dead for five years thing was pretty rough, wasn’t it? Well the world keeps on turning I suppose and that’s definitely true for Peter Parker (Tom Holland) as well as the entire cast from the first Spider-Man movie who JUST SO HAPPENED to be blinked out of existence as well which makes sense to me because this is a movie and everyone liked the cast from the first film. This includes Ned (Jacob Batalon), Mary Jane (Zendaya), and even Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori); all of whom as well as a couple of other students from Peter’s school are going on a European field trip. Frankly, Peter could use the time off considering how much he’s had to go through in the past… I guess it’s only been a few months for him, and after… well ENDGAME SPOILERS WILL BE IN THE REST OF THIS REVIEW SO LOOK AWAY NOW, Tony died saving the universe, he’s been having trouble coping with this whole “superhero” thing which has gotten a lot more real than just being a dude doing back flips on roofs and stopping two bit muggers. Of course nothing can be that easy for good ol’ Peter Parker because Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) along with Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) are trying to pull him into this “save the world” situation where elemental monsters from another dimension are tearing up cities all over the world, and with the Avengers kinda doing their own thing (the ones who aren’t dead at least) all they’ve got to work with is this kid and some dude named Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal) who claims to have come from the same alternate dimension as the elementals and wants to help us stop them. Oh, and at some point people start calling him “Mysterio” for some reason, but I’m sure that’s fine. This is all WAY more than Peter was ready to handle so soon, but then again if he’s not ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice and save the world, was he ever truly worth of being Tony’s protégé and a possible future Avenger? Can the world possibly get along fine with the new guys out there like the square jawed and overly capable Mysterio fellow to let Peter just be a kid for once? Seriously, considering where he ends up in Into the Spider-Verse, he might as well quit now. Yes, EITHER version of Peter in that movie!
“So what’s it like having already done this already? When you look back on what you’ve accomplished, was it worth the years of sacrifice?” “What? No, that wasn’t… I’M NOT TOBEY MAGUIRE!!”
Child’s Play and all the images you see in this review are owned by United Artists Releasing
Directed by Lars Klevberg
I’m gonna say it right now. Even though the movie gets quite a bit of praise, Child’s Play is still underrated. It’s one of those series where the later films defined the look and tone that stuck in the popular consciousness to the point that the merits of the original can still be somewhat overlooked. It’s a lot like with the first Friday the 13th which is mostly known for the non-Jason killer and the sorta-Jason jump scare. The first Child’s Play really does have a lot going for it even if the more recognizable elements like the campiness and Jennifer Tilly’s Tiffany are absent. In a way that kind of makes it perfect for a remake as the finer points of the original can feel fresh to newer audiences who only know of the franchise in the broadest of terms. Then again, turning Chucky from a possessed doll to a bad robot doesn’t feel particularly inspired, but I guess we can’t begrudge a remake for trying something new, right? Does this manage to capture the spirit of the original film while telling it in a new and interesting way, or is this yet another mess of a movie to throw on the pile with The Nightmare on Elm Street remake, The Black Christmas remake, and whatever the heck that Rings movie was supposed to be? Let’s find out!!
Andy Barclay and his mother Karen (Gabriel Bateman and Aubrey Plaza) have just moved to the city and are trying to start fresh with a new life, yet neither one of them seem to be doing a great job of it. Karen is in a relationship with a huge jerk named Shane (David Lewis), Andy isn’t making any friends with the kids in his building, and to make matters worse Karen has to work the return desk at a department store which means she has to deal with angry jerks ALL day long. You’d think she’d recognize the jerk-gene in her boyfriend considering how many of them visit her on a daily basis, but regardless of that, Andy’s birthday is coming up and she’s got nothing for him. I mean I guess she COULD buy him a Cabbage Patch knockoff doll, but considering it’s not the late eighties and he’s thirteen, it doesn’t seem like a good fit. Maybe she’ll “procure” one of those Buddi Dolls that one of the customers returned which I GUESS is supposed to be an A.I. assistant only MORE anthropomorphic since it’s housed inside a creepy looking robot doll. Hey, it’s cheaper than a new phone! Karen takes it home and Andy, while initially resistant, ends up finding a soft spot for the little bugger named Chucky (Mark Hamill), but not everything is as it should be because Chucky is not just an A.I.; it’s a LEARNING A.I. who observes things around it and jumps to the conclusion that murder might just might be the best way to solve Andy’s problems, and unfortunately for Andy this isn’t a problem that can be solved by turning it off and turning it back on again. Can Andy teach Chucky the ways of peace before he starts leaving a lot of bloody messes in his wake? Just how far will Chucky’s programming go to ensure Andy’s “happiness” at the exclusion of everything else? Couldn’t we let Mark Hamill use his Joker voice and just say Andy downloaded a custom speech pack from the cloud!?
“I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” “Do you have to say that EVERY time we start a new game?”
The Reviewers Unite 