Robert and the Toymaker

Robert The Doll (2015) and Curse Of Robert The Doll (2016) were awful films, truly appalling poorly made messes.

For this reason I was stunned they made anymore, and even more stunned when I realised that this one isn't actually bad.

The Toymaker otherwise known as Robert & The Toymaker is a huge improvement. For a start the cast are great, the opening scene especially was extremely good and filled with tension.

Next the movie takes a new direction and isn't another mindless killer doll movie, this origin story is less action and more substance.

There is still plenty of stupidity on display, some ropey sfx, unanswered questions and some clear influence from the Puppet Master franchise but it's a step up from the previous films regardless.

I'd not say this is a good film and I'd recommend it to nobody, what I will say however is the creators are at least heading in the right direction which makes me hope the 4th part will be entertaining.

The Good:

Some decent performances

Great opening

The Bad:

Toymakers makeup effects are terrible

Doesn't actually have much of a story

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

During World War 2 Germans spoke English in their home country

Despite having no joints in a dolls fingers they can still pick things up

Saw 'The Toymaker', being fond of horror/thriller regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.

Giving 'The Toymaker' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be far better than expected. Won't say that 'The Toymaker' is a great film because it isn't (pretty weak actually) and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually marginally better than most recent low-budget viewings.

'The Toymaker' started off quite reasonably, the first twenty minutes or so starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.

Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected, and the music, which not the most memorable in the world, didn't detract from the atmosphere.

The setting is effectively spooky. There are a few spooky and suspenseful moments.

However, the story was severely wanting in especially the second half after starting off promisingly for the first twenty minutes. It is very disjointed, extremely padded with so many scenes that add nothing and gets dull and uneventful too early after the promising start. The final third especially loses atmosphere, one loses interest and things start to not make sense and gets increasingly jumbled. Too much of the film is vague and doesn't explore some elements and story strands enough (motives are underexplored or absent for example), some dropped soon after being introduced, go nowhere or serve much point.

Ending is unsatisfying, on top of feeling hasty there are too many loose ends hanging in the air. Got the sense that the writers didn't know how to end the film. Would have liked much more tension and suspense (which were generally very lacking), scares could have been more consistent and much more (what there was was predictable and cheap) and generally weren't surprising enough.

Found too the script to lack natural flow and with a lot of cheese, repetition and padding going on, and the characters bland with some adopting some annoying and not always logical decision making. The support acting in particular is even more problematic than the second half's storytelling, at best it was poor and too often terrible.

Overall, weak but could have been worse. 3/10 Bethany Cox

I'll be honest, I haven't been overly impressed with some of the films from this franchise, but they're not all bad, and this is one of the better ones.

It's atmospheric as opposed to creepy, it relies more on the menace brought by the Naxi uniform, as opposed to Annabelle style horror, please don't expect any of the latter.

The acting is a mixed bag, but I'm going to commend Erick Hayden for his role as The Colonel, I thought he played the part well, he was measured, and arguably more chilling than Robert.

On the downside, The Toymaker's makeup looks like it was supplied by Primary School children, it's shabby and ill fitting, a contrast to The Nazi uniforms which look realistic. Robert, once again his little steps are quite funny, he needed a little more mobility.

It didn't have much of a budget, but they did a decent job with what they had, I think it looks pretty nice, the lighting is good, it flows pretty well.

So it's not a big story with a plausible beginning, middle and end, it's more like a snippet, but overall it adds to the overall story of Robert.

I didn't mind this one, 6/10.

Terrible fake accents and budget ageing makeup. Set in WW2 but modern things still left on the set like a Visa credit card sign in the shop and modern toys 😂

Good movie to watch for especially the horror scenes and also the robert toy the movie is well set in nazis period of drama the movie is good to watch.