Ringing in the new year is a sophisticated and super technological upgraded Child’s Play for a new generation. M3GAN is amusingly crazy, campy, and clever. At the same time, it can also be quite frustrating in its familiarity and sadly not going far enough with some of its more interesting themes about trauma, grief, and our unhealthy relationship with technology. The parts are certainly there, yet director Gerard Johnstone and screenwriter Akela Cooper (Barbarian) can’t quite assemble them in a way to create something much more scary and fresh. But as our new friend to the end, M3gan herself is one of the creepiest, most unnerving inventions to come out of the horror genre in recent memory.
After 8 year-old Cady (Violet McGraw) loses her parents in a car wreck, her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams) takes her in and is way in over her head. Gemma is a bright robotics engineer who works at a big toy company and is feeling the pressure of pushing out something new that’ll blow the competition away. Her career is top priority and she obviously doesn’t have the time to properly care for Cady during such a crucial time in her life. Gemma decides to kill two birds with one stone by rushing M3gan (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis) to life so to please her employer and babysit her niece.
A win-win situation until M3gan refuses to simply be shut off as her and Cady become inseparable. And who can blame Cady? Her toy is not only the cream of the crop, but is there when she needs her the most. M3gan is incredibly intelligent, has a voice of an angel, and values friendship like you wouldn’t believe. With a few more kinks worked out, it’s easy to imagine her not being so damn maniacal and murderous. The more I think about it, the more I realize everything is basically Gemma’s fault.
To a large extent, what makes this horror-comedy fun to watch is that it’s exceedingly self-aware. However, there are times where it’s too silly for its own good and needs to turn the thrills up another few notches. Johnstone claims the reshoots he had to do to get the movie a PG-13 rating actually made it scarier. Yeah…I’m not buying it. The rating is partially what holds M3GAN back from truly going for it. There are several cool kills and chills, though a lot is very predictable and somewhat subdued.
M3GAN knows what it is and seems satisfied with that. Fair enough. But it’s still a bummer that the direction it goes in is not the more daring one that could have broken the mold. One thing is for sure, M3gan struts her stuff in killer style. Chucky should be very afraid because she’s here to stay.
Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association and the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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