Eight years after their last battle, Chucky is back to face Andy (Justin Whalin).
Now a teen at a military academy, Andy has to dodge real bullets instead of rubber ones.
Writer Don Mancini said he was running out of ideas around the third entry, and you can feel it.
But while this entry does feel the most threadbare of the series so far, there is a lot of interesting ideas here.
For one thing, the movie does not look like a quick cash-in. It looks slick, and the main title sequence - showing Chucky’s blood mixing into the mould of a new doll - is fantastic.
The military academy setting fits Andy’s precarious place in the previous movies, as society tries to make him fit by locking him away.
Since this film takes place eight years later, Alex Vincent could not return so Andy is now played by Justin Whalin - he is solid in the role, and is particularly well-cast for this entry.
The film wants to be about kids trying to play at a specific kind of masculinity, and Whalin projects a softness and empathy that - whether technique or just natural affect - creates a clash that works for this theme.
This clash between Andy and the bullies at the camp is all about gender roles. As with the previous films, Andy is mentored by a more mature woman, Kristin (Perrey Reeves) who has mastered this environment, and is able to help him overcome these forces without losing himself.
As for his nemesis, Chucky is more of an evil trickster here. It feels like Don Mancini teeing up the wilder antics the the ginger terror would get up to in later movies. Shipping himself to camp, sneaking about the place with impunity - this movie is a showcase for its villain.
He even uses the war games against the students, swapping out the bullets for one of the teams.
The third act has some inventive touches - the setting in a haunted house/roller coaster is eye catching - but there is something missing from the showdown - a catharsis, a sense of some kind of deeper change in Andy, that is missing.
This is the first film where he has to save everyone by himself - proving that he is no longer a child who needs to be rescued.
It does not feel like a final instalment - nothing in the film teases another film, but it does not feel like we are saying goodbye to Chucky or Andy.
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