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M3GAN, 2022
Gemma (Allison Williams) is an engineer/programmer at a successful toy company whose life is shaken up when her sister and brother-in-law die in a car accident, leaving her with sole custody of her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). Gemma decides that to help Cady (and herself), she will let Cady experiment with a new robotic companion, M3GAN (Jenna Davis). But M3GAN's companionship takes a dark turn when she interprets her mission to protect Cady in a very violent way.
Achieving the sweet spot of something that knows it's schlock and lives every moment to the schlockiest, M3GAN is a funny and fun take on the killer doll horror subgenre.
I'm generally speaking not the biggest fan of killer doll characters, but M3GAN does a delightful job of allowing its antagonist to evolve in parallel with her human counterpart. M3GAN starts out merely as a supportive presence for Cady. Drawing with her, playing. But as M3GAN starts to develop her own mental structures and understanding of the world around her, she reevaluates her role in Cady's life.
And the film does a great job of establishing some characters who seem to fully invite their eventual dispatches. Whether it's Gemma's ruthlessly inconsiderate neighbor and her aggressive dog, or the sadist adolescent who torments the other children in a playgroup, the film stays firmly in comedy territory because the characters we actually like never seem to be in real danger. If M3GAN wants to hunt a sexual sadist through the woods, who am I to judge?
There's also a decent subplot around Gemma actually building a relationship with Cady. A lot of the reason that Gemma turns to M3GAN is because she's unsure of how to connect with Cady. While I felt that the film really gave short shrift to the fact that Gemma's sister has just died---we literally get one scene in which we see her process this loss--this is a pretty good subplot. Cady's terrible therapist warns Gemma that Cady needs someone to attach to after the loss of her parents, and Gemma is allowing M3GAN to take that place.
I was also pleased to see one of my favorite YouTube creators, Brian Jordan Alvarez, pop up in a supporting role. Good for him!
I actually have very few criticisms with this one, because I happen to think that the acting, writing, everything are all perfectly aligned with the kind of movie that this film is aiming to be. I laughed out loud a lot, and I don't need to look to hard at which laughs were intentional and which weren't. (Only genuinely unintentional laugh? That terrible, jarring Sky Vodka product placement).
Very enjoyable.
M3GAN, 2022
Gemma (Allison Williams) is an engineer/programmer at a successful toy company whose life is shaken up when her sister and brother-in-law die in a car accident, leaving her with sole custody of her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). Gemma decides that to help Cady (and herself), she will let Cady experiment with a new robotic companion, M3GAN (Jenna Davis). But M3GAN's companionship takes a dark turn when she interprets her mission to protect Cady in a very violent way.
Achieving the sweet spot of something that knows it's schlock and lives every moment to the schlockiest, M3GAN is a funny and fun take on the killer doll horror subgenre.
I'm generally speaking not the biggest fan of killer doll characters, but M3GAN does a delightful job of allowing its antagonist to evolve in parallel with her human counterpart. M3GAN starts out merely as a supportive presence for Cady. Drawing with her, playing. But as M3GAN starts to develop her own mental structures and understanding of the world around her, she reevaluates her role in Cady's life.
And the film does a great job of establishing some characters who seem to fully invite their eventual dispatches. Whether it's Gemma's ruthlessly inconsiderate neighbor and her aggressive dog, or the sadist adolescent who torments the other children in a playgroup, the film stays firmly in comedy territory because the characters we actually like never seem to be in real danger. If M3GAN wants to hunt a sexual sadist through the woods, who am I to judge?
There's also a decent subplot around Gemma actually building a relationship with Cady. A lot of the reason that Gemma turns to M3GAN is because she's unsure of how to connect with Cady. While I felt that the film really gave short shrift to the fact that Gemma's sister has just died---we literally get one scene in which we see her process this loss--this is a pretty good subplot. Cady's terrible therapist warns Gemma that Cady needs someone to attach to after the loss of her parents, and Gemma is allowing M3GAN to take that place.
I was also pleased to see one of my favorite YouTube creators, Brian Jordan Alvarez, pop up in a supporting role. Good for him!
I actually have very few criticisms with this one, because I happen to think that the acting, writing, everything are all perfectly aligned with the kind of movie that this film is aiming to be. I laughed out loud a lot, and I don't need to look to hard at which laughs were intentional and which weren't. (Only genuinely unintentional laugh? That terrible, jarring Sky Vodka product placement).
Very enjoyable.