Eight years have now passed since the events of "Child's Play 2", and Andy Barclay (Justin Whalin, 'Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman') is now a screwed-up teenager who gets shuffled off to a military school. (This, after a number of foster home experiences.). Surprise, surprise: the doofuses at Play Pal Toys Company are now confident all the bad publicity is behind them at this point, and resurrect the Good Guys doll line. Guess who's first off the assembly line? Reborn, Chucky manages to mail himself to the military school, but now sets his sights on a VERY impressionable youngster (Jeremy Sylvers, in his only feature film role) rather than Andy.
Given that regular series writer Don Mancini was under pressure to deliver a script, even before the first sequel hit theaters, it's understandable that he might not have had any real inspiration in knocking out this screenplay. It can definitely be a silly and contrived story, but as long as you're a fan of the Chucky character, "Child's Play 3" doles out adequate entertainment. It does give the ultra-psychotic killer doll a steady supply of chump victims to dispatch, and also gives our hero some human antagonists in the form of the bullying Shelton (Travis Fine, "Girl, Interrupted") and Sergeant Botnick (veteran movie villain Andrew Robinson, "Dirty Harry"), a barber who clearly loves his job way too much. There's time for some humor, especially in the case of the colonel (Dakin Matthews, "True Grit" 2010) and his fate when HE sees Chucky in action for the first time. Andy also gets his first love interest in De Silva, a tough, comely female cadet (Perrey Reeves, "Old School").
Yeah, the whole amusement park finale may be truly over the top and ridiculous, but it adds a dopey amount of fun to the proceedings. This is truly the kind of setting where a character like Chucky doesn't feel out of place.
Debuting film director Jack Bender (whose career is mostly in TV) may be no Tom Holland (or even John Lafia, the director of the first sequel), but he makes all of this watchable enough, in a true "turn off your brain and enjoy the mayhem" fashion. It's still the least film in the initial trilogy.
Brad Dourif, as always, is a total hoot voicing the crazed anti-hero / star of this series.
Six out of 10.
Given that regular series writer Don Mancini was under pressure to deliver a script, even before the first sequel hit theaters, it's understandable that he might not have had any real inspiration in knocking out this screenplay. It can definitely be a silly and contrived story, but as long as you're a fan of the Chucky character, "Child's Play 3" doles out adequate entertainment. It does give the ultra-psychotic killer doll a steady supply of chump victims to dispatch, and also gives our hero some human antagonists in the form of the bullying Shelton (Travis Fine, "Girl, Interrupted") and Sergeant Botnick (veteran movie villain Andrew Robinson, "Dirty Harry"), a barber who clearly loves his job way too much. There's time for some humor, especially in the case of the colonel (Dakin Matthews, "True Grit" 2010) and his fate when HE sees Chucky in action for the first time. Andy also gets his first love interest in De Silva, a tough, comely female cadet (Perrey Reeves, "Old School").
Yeah, the whole amusement park finale may be truly over the top and ridiculous, but it adds a dopey amount of fun to the proceedings. This is truly the kind of setting where a character like Chucky doesn't feel out of place.
Debuting film director Jack Bender (whose career is mostly in TV) may be no Tom Holland (or even John Lafia, the director of the first sequel), but he makes all of this watchable enough, in a true "turn off your brain and enjoy the mayhem" fashion. It's still the least film in the initial trilogy.
Brad Dourif, as always, is a total hoot voicing the crazed anti-hero / star of this series.
Six out of 10.