M3gan is an absolute hoot of a horror film. It’s the kind of film best experienced with a big audience, one that will verbalize their amusement, frustrations, and terror at the screen as if it would make a difference. Like how it was at my screening. The audience was seemingly keyed into the tonal tightrope that director, Gerard Johnstone, and his writer, Akela Cooper, were walking on. When the titular character gave a certain look or delivered a sassy line, the crowd went wild, chuckling or going “ooooh,” like you would when a classmate was called into the principal’s office.
So, it makes sense that along with a producing credit with Jason Blum, we have James Wan credited as coming u with the story with Cooper. The two already teamed up with the enormously nutty Malignant, a true masterclass of midnight movie madness, and while this isn’t as extreme as that film, it taps into similar experiential buttons with how it plays with the audience. The premise is simple enough, following an accident that took her parent, the young Cady (Violet McGraw) lives with her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams), a tech genius who works with a toy company, who puts together a robot to help Cady open up and cope with her trauma.
That robot is M3gan, short for Model 3 Generative Android (performed on set by Amie Donald with voice-over work from Jenna Davis), it is a very lifelike and highly advanced piece of machinery and intelligence that very quickly makes its way into the family, as Cady bond with it, and the company that Gemma works for, headed by David (Ronny Chieng) is eager to get the eyes of investors on the robot, so it can be mass produced and distributed to toy stores everywhere. However, M3gan starts showing signs of protectiveness over Cady that soon turns violent.
With a premise like that, it’s pretty easy to see where the film will go plot-wise, but the fun is seeing just how they play these familiar beats out. There is an overall cheekiness to the film, often bordering on being a straight up comedy at many points, and it allows the film to go wild with how they utilize the M3gan character, drawing out these sequences where it is out for blood, and it is immensely satisfying to watch. Though, I should give a warning, there is a dog death early in the film, so if that isn’t your thing, be warned, you’ll know when it’s coming.
Thematically, I was quite surprised by the film. It’s very easy for a film like this to go all-in on the whole, tired “robots will kill us all” element, which is certainly there, but that ultimately plays second fiddle to the main idea being all about parenting. Gemma is not used to parenting, and now she’s stuck with a kid, and often uses technology as a crutch to make things easier. But it comes to a point where the technology is raising the child as opposed to the parent. It’s an interesting play on the classic dependence on technology theme we’ve seen before, but it’s grounded in something more intimate and relatable, and it earns its emotional payoff to these themes by the time we get to the end.
M3gan is a hell of a good time through and through. It’s the kind of film where everyone involved is so tuned into what they were aiming for, and hit the bull’s eye from beginning to end without falling into the trap of too many layers of irony, which could have easily been the case for something as weird and wacky as this. Are there faults? Sure. The lack of an R-rating does pull back from going full gonzo like Malignant, and there are some elements that could have been more fleshed out like Gemma’s relationship with her now passed sister. But they don’t really come to mind as you watch the film. M3gan makes for a very memorable villain, and if we’re going by all the memes that have come out of this since that first trailer, I’d argue instantly iconic. Donald does a wonderful job conveying all the robotic ticks of M3gan’s physicality, and McGraw and Williams play off each other exceptionally well. I also have to shoutout Chieng, Jen Van Epps, Brian Jordan Alvarez, and Millen Baird (who is only in one scene) for delivering many of the film’s most funniest moments and line deliveries. It also manages to make old and exhaustive themes feel earned and relevant again. I gotta say, this is one hell of a start to 2023.
M3gan is now out in theaters.