Muñeco diabólico 2

I think I liked Child's Play 2 more than most people, given the reviews that I've read and the movie's low voter rating on the IMDb. A cute kid's doll is once again the unlikely home of Charles Lee Ray, notorious serial killer, again feeding off of the surrealism created by seeing a kid's doll screw it's face into expressions of the purest rage and spouting all manner of profanities. By now, Ray is becoming more and more desperate to get out of the body of the doll, because as we were informed in the first film, if he spends too much time in that body he'll gradually become more and more human until one day he'll be stuck in it forever. Needless to say, Ray's a lot more interested in starting life over as a 6-year-old (and who wouldn't?) rather than spending the rest of his life as a plastic doll.

Although, given that he becomes more human the longer he is in that body, how human will he eventually become? Will he ever reach full human-hood? My guess is that he'll gradually approach being a real human being in a sort of half life, where he gets closer and closer and closer but never actually gets there, kind of like computer generated actors. There is currently much talk about how close computers can ever get to animating convincingly real people into the movies, and the leading theory seems to be something akin to my theory of Chucky turning human. He'll always get closer but he'll never get all the way there.

At any rate, Andy's mother has landed in a mental institution and Andy has been taken in by a foster family with appropriate mental vacuity to be a horror movie surrogate family. When Andy becomes frightened and runs through the house, his foster father grabs him and says, 'Rule #1, no running in the house!' OK, 'dad,' but not even when I open a closet and find myself confronted by the doll that landed my mom in the nuthouse and almost cost me my life and my very soul? My God, man, what the hell is this guy doing with a Good Guys doll in the house in the first place? It's difficult enough trying to figure out why it's even there WITHOUT having to watch this mental giant grab Andy by the arm and ask him what on earth is the matter.

There are some funny moments in the film, such as when Chucky smashes the head of the innocent Good Guys doll, buries it, and takes its place in the house, and my favorite, when Chucky is later addressed by a doting adult, Chucky responds by saying in his cute doll voice, 'Hi! I'm….Tommy!'

The stockholders in the Play Pal corporation are distressed over the suffering that the company has endured due to the negative publicity of the events of the first movie provide the premise for the movie's rather impressive finale. In order to generate a more positive image for the company and the doll, they have decided to reintroduce it into the market. The original Chucky doll was collected by the company and examined by toy-makers, who decided that there really was nothing truly wrong with it, it was not really a demon-possessed toy, so they decided to melt it down and remake it. Why they didn't just throw it away I'm not really sure, but who cares. Waste not, want not, I guess.

At any rate, Chucky comes back in a fresh plastic body (too bad he can't be transferred to a human as easily as he can be transferred from one doll body to another), and once again resumes his quest for Andy's soul. I've heard complaints about why Chucky had to go after Andy and couldn't just find a bum on the street or something, but you'll remember in the first movie, the conditions of his plastic entrapment stated that he could only transfer into the body of the first person that he revealed his identity to once he was inside the Chucky doll.

Jarrett Friend, writing for HorrorWatch, made the above suggestion having forgotten that little stipulation, but also smartly suggested that the plot should have involved a huge number of Chucky dolls, since the original doll was melted down and whose plastic conceivably should have infected much more dolls than just the one that we saw in this movie. This would have made the movie much more interesting and added another level of originality; my guess is they just didn't have the budget for something that big.

Nevertheless, even though the first sequel in the Child's play series comes dangerously close to falling into that sophomore sequel chasm of falling flat because of obviously feeding off the success of its predecessor without having much of anything to add to the story, Child's Play 2 escapes into the world of moderately acceptable horror sequels, kind of like Psycho II, which had no hope of matching its predecessor but at least was able to justify its own existence.

I think it's easy to be put off by the conclusion of Child's Play 2, but I was pretty impressed with the toy factory setting, if only because it created such a great atmosphere for Chucky to make his hunt and Andy and his foster sister Kyle to try vainly to escape. There was some pretty clever stuff in the final act of the film, not including, however, the scene where Kyle and Andy run around completely lost, making the factory seem like a maze by editing together a lot of clips of them clearly running around the same corner half a dozen times or so. A bit trite, but nothing compared to my biggest gripe of the film, which is the final scene, one of the goofier things that I've seen on an otherwise at least moderately competent horror movie.

Odd for a movie to try so hard to live up to its expectations and then belittle itself with something like what I'll just call the air hose scene. I do, however, think that the movie was successful and good enough to deserve a better DVD than it got. I can't stand it when the only extra features on the DVD for a successful film are nothing but some foreign audio tracks and cast and crew history that is nothing more than a brief biography and a list of film credits. What do you think the IMDb is for?

If you never saw the first 'Child's Play' film... it's about a serial killer whose soul gets trapped inside a children's doll and then goes on to persecute the poor little boy (Andy Barclay) who buys him. Now, after sending the offending dolly back to hell, he's back again (you don't need to know how - basically the same way Freddy, Jason or Michael Myers always comes back - yet - again). And, guess what, Andy Barclay is top of his 'hit list.' Brad Dourif returns to voice the killer doll, Chucky, and he gets it right on the mark again. However, the story does get a little bit repetitive after a while. It focuses around no one believing Andy that his doll is alive (and evil), only to find they're proved wrong when the doll kills them in a grisly manner (rinse and repeat). Plus you can tell who's going to die a mile off - all the adults are pretty horrible and you won't really shed a tear when any of them get gutted. Then there are the lapses in physics, i.e. when a plastic doll can regularly overpower fully-grown adults.

However, despite all its flaw, Child's Play 2 just about does the job. If you liked the first one, this one does its best to keep the franchise going along the same lines. However, if you're new to the films, I'd start off with the first one (it's easily the best and scariest) before seeing if you want to watch this one, too.

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"Child's Play 2" is the first sequel to the popular 1988 original. The first film was a very entertaining horror film. The second movie in the series isn't as good, but it's not real bad either. However, the filmmakers took the gory route for this one. All the graphic violence makes it less effective. The first movie worked so well because it kept the violence down to a minimal. Oh the first film was violent, but not as violent as this one. But it's stylish look somehow makes it watchable. And, like the original, it's entertaining to watch. Young Alex Vincent reprises his role from the original as Andy Barclay, the boy who in this movie goes to live with foster parents while his mother seeks psychiatric help (from the events in "Child's Play"). Andy himself still isn't all together, and when Chucky the killer doll re-enters his life again, watch out! "Child's Play 2" may not be as good as "Child's Play", but it sure is better than the next movie in the series, "Child's Play 3" (which I thought was awful). I haven't seen the fourth movie yet ("Bride of Chucky"), so I can't voice my opinion on that one at the moment.

**1/2 (out of four)

Chucky is one of those dolls that can't stay dead, still inhabited by an evil spirit. The little boy he turned into an orphan is leaving the clinic now that he's over the traumatic situation (or so the head of the clinic tells his adoptive parents). His adoptive parents take him home and you know things aren't going to settle down when a Chucky doll drops from the top shelf of a closet he's exploring.

The evil Chucky doll finds his way to the household, switches places with the toy doll and buries it, setting the stage for things to come. Credibility really is strained by the time we get to the schoolroom scene where Chucky has followed the boy to school, lands magically in his classroom and manages to start trouble between the boy and the teacher, who subsequently gets killed by Chucky after the boy has climbed out a window. Takes quite an imagination to think of these plot lines, but when the imagination runs wild plausibility begins to suffer.

Following the schoolhouse segment, the bizarre incidents keep piling up as Chucky gets away with more and more havoc and no one believes the boy is telling the truth--just as in the original.

None of the incidents are as startling or as well staged as in CHILD'S PLAY, but it still manages to hold the interest with some original touches tinged with fright and a weird sense of humor. Especially good are the effects toward the end when Chucky holds the spunky adopted girl and boy captive as the story speeds toward an ending in the toy factory. The factory sequence has some grotesque chills as one of the workers gets caught up in the doll machinery and Chucky himself suffers quite a few "happenings" at the toy factory before he's liquidated by the boy.

Entertaining nonsense despite the strain on credibility.

There's something to marvel at while watching "Child's Play 2." From a grandiose score courtesy of the wonderful Graeme Revell. To some really fascinating set-design. To quirky, stylized direction from John Lafia. And even a few key scenes that have a timeless, mythical feel. It seems that the creative team behind "Child's Play 2" sought to not only create an effective sequel, but also build the character of Chucky into the sort of thing that legends are made of. This is a big, bombastic, wild ride of a film, constrained within the guise of being a standard slasher-sequel.

But, there's something important to think about. A key question. Does it work?

And the answer to that question: Sort of, I guess.

Following a wild opening in which Chucky (voiced by the fantastic Brad Dourif) is re-constructed in a way that I actually found quite intriguing, he escapes and sets off to find his old target- young Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), who is in the process of being placed into a new foster home. With his new body, Chucky hopes to finally be able to transfer his tormented spirit into a human host once and for all. And so a sort-of deadly game begins, as Chucky infiltrates Andy's new home, and toys with him, causing him distress and picking off the people around him, leading up to a final confrontation that I can only describe as epic in scope and quite satisfying.

Returning screenwriter Don Mancini seems more at home this time around (after some apparent drama with the first film going into rewrites), and relishes in the chaos of the storyline. You can feel a writer just having fun with the material when you watch this film. Everything is bigger. Stakes rise to new heights. Set-pieces are more encompassing and wild. And there are new ideas being explored left and right.

John Lafia's guidance as director is quite good. While the original film was slick and grounded, Lafia here goes for stylized visuals that lend a unique quality to the film, making it feel more akin to a fairy-tale. And I really enjoyed that aspect of the production. Although at times it does take you out of the movie, because things are a little TOO stylish. (A scene where a character has to run around a maze of boxes, while suspenseful, will probably make you chuckle and exclaim "Who stacks boxes like that?!")

I found the performances admirable. Alex Vincent grows quite a bit as a young performer. Though I didn't mention it in my review of the first film, I never found his acting organic or believable. He was just a little too young and a little too cute for you to believe the emotions he was trying to convey. But here, he knocks it out of the park. He's a bit older, as had more experience acting, and is able to give a really remarkable, compelling performance for a child-actor. Supporting roles by the likes of Christine Elise and Jenny Agutter are also quite good. Particularly Elise as "Kyle", Andy's older "Foster Sister", who becomes the person he connects with most in the story. She has a lot of heart in her performance, and comes off well on- screen, and along with Andy, is the one person you really care for.

And of course there is Brad Dourif. He IS Chucky. His role is a perfect blend of different elements, combining to create a near-ideal slasher-movie villain. Dourif's voice is commanding and threatening, yet also oddly endearing and amusing when it needs to be. His delivery is spot-on in every scene. And he is able to take charge of every scene he's in.

All of this being said, I do think there are a lot of fundamental issues with the film. And I do believe that despite rampant strengths, it just doesn't quite "gel together" as it did in the first movie.

Despite the more grandiose scale and qualities of the film, I thought it didn't do quite as good a job at forging human connections. With so much chaotic content, the smaller moments just seemed to become lost in translation, which is a pretty big issue. This is a film of style over substance.

I also felt that the film lost me at a few times. Some of the performers aren't up to snuff (despite the main cast being great), some of the deaths are bizarre and weak, and some moments just seemed silly, or went on for far too long.

If the film could have gone through just a little bit more trimming and re-editing, I think it could easily have matched the quality of the original.

But still, as it stands, "Child's Play 2" is highly enjoyable, albeit flawed. And I think that in the grand scheme of things, it's definitely worth checking out for all fans of horror. If the story doesn't win you over, the crazy, mythical style just might.

I give it an average 6 out of 10.