Review of Child's Play 2 (1990) by Chris C — 27 Jan 2008

Child's Play 2 doesn't come close to living up to the standard set by the first movie in the series, but it's still a pretty decent slasher movie that amounts to about an hour and a half of mindless fun.

One very obvious thing that sets Child's Play 2 apart from its predecessor is the feeling that it's a bigger movie. The first movie felt grounded in reality, but everything in his one feels a little larger than life. The sets are all huge and colorful, Chucky kills more people, and the movie's direction draws attention to itself for being pretty dramatic at times. Being bigger isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it makes for some possibly unfair comparisons. Child's Play two is pretty good on its own, but compared to the first one it feels inferior.

For one thing, this movie falls into the trap that many other slashers from the era did by featuring a wise-cracking killer who murders meaningless characters in inventive ways. That's great if that's what you enjoy watching, and I do enjoy mindless slashers, but it's such a departure from the first movie that I can't help but be a little disappointed.

I do like this movie as a sequel to the original though. Though the reasons for bringing Chucky back to life are thin, and the logic of the plot is even thinner, I like that it continues the story of Chucky trying to find Andy so he can transfer his soul back into a real body. There's a scene near the end of this one that's a callback to the first scene of the first movie, so as a sequel it feels like good closure to the story so far.

Overall, I like Child's Play 2. I just wish it felt more like the first movie and not like nearly every other slasher movie from its time.