3 out of 5

Directed by: Jack Bender

Another film in the series – things are bound to get a little silly.  And they do.  But Cory Lerios’ and John D’Andrea’s score plays this up well, as does Bender’s campy camera work.  Yes, series scribe Mancini’s admittance of running out of ideas by this point becomes apparent as the plot tries to chug along to fill up screentime, but up until the clueless ending (and accompanying stupid setpiece, something the second film shared), CP3 isn’t a horrible 90s era horror flick, nor does it ‘lower the brand’ in any irreversible way, excepting maybe less impressive and / or boring Chucky effects, but that trend is somewhat expected as sequels go on.  But, sure, at the time, we’re rushing another entry out one year later, and the film is suspect for jumping the timeline ahead 8 years, with Alex (played effectively by Justin Whalin) now at a Military School.  It’s a cheap trick to cover a lack of knowing how to sensibly resurrect Chucky within the existing timeframe, but it works within the genre’s convoluted logic: the Good Guy company feels recovered from the bad publicity of events in CP1 and 2, so, hey, let’s make the classic mistake of doing it all over again, which of course means inadvertently resurrecting Chucky in the process.  Chuck tracks down Alex easily enough, but there’s a nice wrinkle (or plothole, depending on how much you care) in that he becomes ‘soul bonded’ to a different boy at the school.  But Alex knows the score, and sets about bringing events to their climactic necessities.  True, no surprises.  But Dourif (as Chucky) gets some wonderful one-liners in, better than in CP2, and again, there’s a willfully cheeky sensibility to the whole thing, particularly with Hellraiser’s Andrew Robinson showing up in a quirky role.  The film also manages to stay somewhat logical, people coming around to acceptance in due course, although there’s still the problem of making this small doll actually a threat, which only the first movie actually did well.  No, CP3 is not a classic, but it’s not so far off the path as history (i.e. Rotten Tomatoes) may suggest, with committed acting and consistent production keeping things rooted.  We’ll just have to get used to these silly end sequences.