Barbie (2023)

It isn't terrifically funny, generating just a handful of laughs, and while a positive and important message film, it is hard to enjoy it without cynically appraising it as a Mattel marketing exercise and feeling duped: much of the film is spent positioning an antiquated white-skinned, blonde-haired and pink kitchen-accessoried doll - and prime offender over decades in promoting unrealistic female standards - as a torchbearer for feminism and cultural diversity.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Brahms: The Boy II (2020)

Viewers of the original movie, The Boy, in 2016 were either dismayed by the ending which undid the classic "creepy doll" horror they thought they were watching or like me thought the ending clever - a way to freshen up a stale old "creepy doll" b-horror movie - and now, this sequel, presumably hoping that that dismayed half of viewers might be able to be coaxed back and get behind another creepy doll franchise, creates a backstory that serves to revert to a mere creepy doll horror the events of the original film, with Katie Holmes, as concerned mom watching her son develop far too strong a bond with a doll, valiantly trying to disguise the movie's staggering lack of originality, its utter hohum-ness.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Curse of Chucky (2013)

Satisfying elements of mystery keep you watching this umpteenth episode of the serial killer doll franchise which, taking place in a gothic mansion where a wheelchair-bound woman mourns her mother's death, recalls the classic "lunatic on the loose outside a disabled woman's stronghold" movies of the The Cat And The Canary and The Spiral Staircase variety, at least until the is-this-really-happening, laughable Tommy Wisseau "The Room" reveal-all in flashback.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Child's Play (2019)

Firstly, the problem with this new Chucky is he is no longer a doll possessed by a serial killer but one with a programming glitch - a more intelligent reboot would have made something of the idea a doll doesn't need special psychotic programming when all around, moulding the brains of children (and dolls) are bullying, cheating, voyeuristic lunatic men and horror movie-watching, app-athetic kids; but secondly, I am repelled by the way revolters (not horrors) like this (and IT, recently) are steadily lowering the age of their buzzsaw-wielding, blood-splattered protagonists - it is unpleasant/disturbing from the get-go; and thirdly, this reboot just isn't very intelligent because friends who help dispose of heads suddenly cease being allies, a woman in distress out the front of her bingo parlour is bereft of helpers, video-cam voyeurs don't notice the hard-to-overlook spectacle of cat murder or head-delivery, and - especially silly - by making Chucky a Google Home-like product, more Omni Consumer Product than possessed psycho doll,  this reboot really shoots, no, stabs itself in the foot - Chucky is just an interface we need never see again.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEW

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

By the time some fun stuff arrives - cliffside martial acrobatics, Mission: Impossible-style infiltrations of black tie events and the fast and furious flashbacks that made G.I. Joe: the Rise of the Cobra such unexpected fun - you'll have been burned by a dull boysy first hour where men chortle about their "girl" conquests, snigger about "girls and their guns", leer at legs and you will have already decided Hasbro's action doll franchise needs to stay in 2013.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Annabelle: Creation (2017)

If you think the remote farmhouse of an emotionally-stunted man - father of a dead 11-year-old and husband of a bedridden Phantom-of-the-Opera-mask-wearing victim of paranormal trauma - is a poor choice for a new home for orphan girls (one of whom has leg braces and needs a motor chair to climb the stairs), then this horror - the origin story of a possessed doll but also confusingly about an evil spirit that can possess anything it likes - is probably not for you.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Vice (2015)

A company, "Vice", that offers hedonistic roleplaying experiences, embellishes its A.I. sex robots with elaborate backstories and personalities, which seems a fairly unnecessary thing to do not just for the clientele who are not privy to the robots' bedtime conversations with their robot sisters but also unnecessary to the chase that occupies most of this daft scifi's runtime when one of the sex robots escapes Vice and for an hour and a half runs through point blank machine-gun fire.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Boy (2016)

An extra star for not being quite as silly as it first seems, this still exceedingly silly creepy doll horror movie is a horror in the gothic style of Guillermo del Torro (if you are being generous), about a nanny sent to a remote mansion where she discovers her young charge is actually a frozen-faced doll, possibly possessed or alive or something else equally ridiculous.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Indian In The Cupboard (1995)

A boy discovers that if he locks his toys in a cupboard using a magic key, his toys come to life, meaning this 1995 kids' movie based on a series of novels by Lynne Reid Banks plays out a bit like a live-action Toy Story except instead of an animated toy cowboy with freewill, it has a morose Native American indian who lives his animated moments at the mercy of a goofy white kid.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Annabelle (2014)

Doll possession remains a daft science unadvanced since Chucky but there are enough innovative scares in this The Conjuring prequel to counter the movie's many tired horror cliches, and effective use is made of the fact that anything with a frozen stare is pretty chilling - in this respect, Annabelle, one of the ugliest porcelain dolls ever to grace a doll collection, joins the likes of oil portraits and Disney-on-Ice characters.

★★★☆☆

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