WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Child's Play, in theaters now.
As inventive as the Child's Play reboot gets by sprucing up the franchise for a modern, tech-loving era, it falls into the same plot holes that ensare so many Hollywood movies these days. These plot holes creep in and cut away at what should otherwise be bulletproof, or in this case, stab-proof scripts.
With that in mind, CBR is taking a look at how the new incarnation of Chucky (voiced by Mark Hamill) falls apart in between all of the slicing and dicing.
THE COMPLEX'S GARBAGE
Andy (Gabriel Bateman) and his mom, Karen (Aubrey Plaza), move into a Chicago apartment complex to seek out a new life. However, the building's garbage turns out to be the most glaring plot hole in the film, since it literally holds all of the clues to Andy enabling Chucky's early spate of murders. The boy dumps everything down the chute and into this bin on the street, including his face of the man his mom was dating, Shane, who was skinned by Chucky after becoming his first kill.
The skin was found by the cops, which lead to Andy's arrest, but Andy did the same to his cat, Mickey Rooney, after Chucky killed it earlier in the film. Yet, despite disposing of it the same way to cover up Chucky's sadism, no one finds the dead feline.
Everyone knew that the cat was his mother's, and she spends a good portion of the film looking for it, so it's rather convenient for it to never be addressed once dumped. This all seems to be done in the name of plot convenience so Karen can't pin Andy -- and by extension, Chucky -- to the reign of terror slowly spreading throughout the building.
THE DUMB DETECTIVE
However, Andy should have been caught with Shane's face in the first place, when it was wrapped around a watermelon after Chucky murdered him. However, the plot has a major hole with respect to how Andy was ever able to dump it at all. After his mom caught him with it, he gave it to Detective Mike's mom, Doreen (Carlease Burke) and says that it's a gift. It's even wrapped with the same gift paper Karen brought the Buddi doll home with.
Doreen keeps it on a mantle, thinking it's a heavy ornament, and later, Andy secretly goes to dinner with her and Mike (Brian Tyree Henry) to try to steal it back. After Doreen brings it over and discusses how generous Andy is and Mike even fiddles around with the item, Andy grabs the 'gift' and runs out, just as Mike starts talking about the building's mischievous kids.
Mike simply shrugs it off when he sees the kid's antics and never bothers to ask Andy why he stole it back. The detective never even follows up on his relationship with Shane after he sees Karen and him fighting in the hall. If Mike had shown some intuition or been proactive, he'd have taken note of Andy's shady behavior and could've figured out Chucky after Steve's murder.
FORGETTING THE OFF-SWITCH
When Andy realizes Chucky is malfunctioning in the first half of the film, he gets rid of him, only for the doll to return to the apartment, refurbished for one of Andy's friends, Omar (Marlon Kazadi). Andy, suspects the truth and gets his hands on Omar's phone after a scuffle. He sees that Omar synced Chucky to the Buddi app, which would allow Omar to basically control the doll's actions.
However, Andy never thinks to use it in the finale when Chucky starts commanding drones and Buddi B ears to attack the shoppers in the store at the end of the film. This app have blocked Chucky's orders and, since its specifically connected to his A.I., could have been used to shut down the killer himself.
Andy also could've used the phone a few scenes earlier to stop Chucky from murdering Doreen with her robot-controlled cab. Andy had the phone back then and could have easily powered Chucky down or cancelled his actions.
Shockingly, the phone never comes back into play in the film, even though it's clear that it would be a perfect way for a tech wiz like Andy to keep Chucky from using the digital realm to spread his robotic carnage.
Directed by Lars Klevberg from a script by Tyler Burton Smith, Child's Play stars Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry, Gabriel Bateman, Tim Matheson and Mark Hamill and is in theaters now.