Child’s Play 2

Let’s consider the last moments of the movie “Child’s Play”: On the floor of the apartment is a charred plastic doll with several limbs shot off. There are three adults, two of them officers of the law, who have seen the doll attack people.

And finally, there’s a small child who is claiming that a doll is the one responsible for the death of three people.

So in order for there to be a part two, all that has to happen is… what, exactly? The doll is quite dead, and will surely be entered into evidence. I guess you could write off what happened as something akin to mass hysteria, but ultimately there are a bunch of deceased persons and no evidence to support the theory that any of the remaining witnesses was responsible.

Otherwise, Andy would have been locked up an asylum of some type in the middle of the first movie, right?

Sure.

And, of course, if Chucky were to come back to life, and Andy found out about it, he would just have to tell the three people who have seen the doll living and breathing and they would all believe his story and deal with it accordingly.

There’s probably a good way to get around all these issues for a part two, but I guess no one was all that worried about it. So instead, they concocted two-minute exposition scene wherein the cops covered up what happened (Whaaat? How?), mom is currently being investigated for being unstable (almost makes sense…) and Andy is in the foster care system while his mom is being checked out.

Because, of course, if a kid is in the vicinity of two major murders and a lot of gunfire, he doesn’t need psychiatric care. He needs a temporary family.

Oh, and also the toy company has the doll now, because it couldn’t possibly be evidence in a major murder trial. I mean, maybe the kid did kill Maggie, because it clearly wasn’t anyone else, but, you know, he just needs a new home. We already established that.

So the three parts of the Chucky doll that are still functional are reassembled into a new doll, saving the company thirty-five cents in parts, and costing them a few hundred in manual labor to make the doll by hand.

At which point, the machine that jams eyeballs into the doll’s head delivers a jolt of electricity that kills the person putting the doll back together. And I guess it brings Chucky back to life. I really have no idea. Perhaps it was explained while I was slapping my forehead in disbelief.

But let’s skip over to Andy, who is about to go into foster care. He meets his now foster mom and foster dad, and his new foster sister, Kyle, who has moved from home to home to home. I guess this happens because she smokes. She implies that she rarely lasts anywhere more than a month, and the only thing she really does “wrong” in the movie is the smoking.

She also sneaks out to hang with friends, once. But she doesn’t seem so bad. So I guess it’s the smoking.

Meanwhile, the flunky at the toy company who thought it would be a great idea to save thirty-five cents in parts is told to take Chucky and get him out of the building because of the death of the guy shoving eyeballs into Chucky’s head.

The person responsible for Chucky’s continued existence is subsequently killed by Chucky, because why not?

Back at Andy’s temporary home, he has discovered he has a pretty awesome room, and also his that foster mom forgot to take the Good Guy doll out of the closet. Mom apologizes, then takes the doll downstairs and instead of, say, putting in outside, or locking it in the garage, or otherwise taking it out of sight for the good of a kid who apparently had a psychotic break, she leaves it at the bottom of the stairs.

Chucky has, with a single phone call, figured out where Andy is. He gets into the house, finds the Good Guy doll, beats it to death (why?!), buries it in the backyard (why?!), and takes the other doll’s place on the stairs (why!? No, wait. Sorry. I actually know the answer to this one. Because he wants to take over Andy’s body.).

Chucky then ties up Andy, while Andy sleeps. Instead of just doing the voodoo ritual. When Andy awakens, he finds that he’s tied to the bed, and that Chucky is about to start ritualing it up.

At which point, Kyle, who snuck out of the house earlier, opts to sneak in through Andy’s window. And the foster parents race in, and figure Kyle tied Andy up. And I guess intended to torture Andy with the Good Guy doll.

Arguments and accusations fly. At which point everyone goes to bed, I guess. Andy is sent to school the next day, and Chucky heads to the school as well, having apparently decided that killing Andy in a public school is going to be much easier than doing so at home.

Events ensue, Andy is locked in a classroom for detention, and Chucky is locked in the closet of said classroom, all of which culminates in the death of Andy’s teacher.

At which point, I feel we must pause for a body count.

The first “Child’s Play,” despite being billed as something of a slasher, has surprisingly few deaths in it. Charles Lee Ray dies, then Maggie, then Chucky’s partner in crime, followed by the voodoo priest, and then Chucky dies a second time.

Three people and a doll over the course of the movie.

Whereas in part two, we’ve barely gotten past the midway point, and we already have three dead people and a “dead” doll.

Perhaps the edict for part two was, “Well, as long as we kill more people, we don’t have to worry about making sense.”

Speaking of more deaths, Andy’s foster father is killed by taking a bad tumble down some stairs, thanks to Chucky. Luckily, he finds out that Chucky is the one behind all the mayhem in the house before his neck is broken, so at least he feels a strong sense of guilt about giving Andy such a hard time in the moments before he bites it.

Andy is taken back to the… halfway house? Orphanage? Come to think of it, what was that place, exactly? Because a bunch of kids go racing out of it later, which implies that kids are living there, only isn’t the point of the foster care system that orphanages aren’t really an American institution any more?

Does any portion of this movie make any sense at all?

Kyle discovers the “dead” doll buried in the backyard. This, of course, finally convinces her that maybe there really is a killer doll on the loose, and she runs to tell her foster mother, who already knows. Of course, she’s dead, so she can’t utilize that knowledge, but there you go.

Kyle is held at knifepoint and Chucky instructs her to take him to Andy. She drives him there, finally fighting back by crashing the car, which causes Chucky to fly out the windshield.

At which point she runs away, warns Andy of what’s going on, and they live happily ever after.

No, wait. Sorry. Instead she just sits there, is held at knifepoint again, and takes Chucky into the orphanage.

Mayhem ensues, and Andy and Kyle run a short distance and find themselves in the Good Guy factory.

Because naturally, the place you would want to run to if you were being chased by a killer doll is the place where every single thing in the room looks like him.

Mayhem ensues, and we learn, when Chucky finally gets some recitation time, that Chucky is trapped in his body forever, and can no longer take over Andy.

Or, alternately, the first person he revealed himself as “alive” to this go-around was the guy who had him reassembled. And that guy bought it nearly eighty minutes ago.

In the course of the final showdown, Chucky’s hand is pulled off, and he replaces it with a knife blade. Then a bunch of plastic parts are fused to him. Then hot plastic is poured over him. And finally, his head is blown off.

So Kyle and Andy walk off into the sunrise. It’s a new day, and they have a looot of explaining to do, including the death of their foster mom, the destruction of probably a few hundred thousand dollars worth of property, and a maintenance guy whose head now has plastic eyeballs in it.

Of course, I’m completely positive that all these things will be dealt with in part three. I’m sure they won’t just hand-wave them away again.