When Cady’s (Violet McGraw) parents die in a car accident, she goes to live with her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams).
Gemma is a toy designer who is working on a revolutionary new toy: M3GAN (Amie Donald and Jenna Davis), a robot with artificial intelligence designed to bond with a child and fulfil all that child’s specific needs.
In an attempt to bond with her niece, Gemma brings her onto the project, to test out if M3GAN is ready for the mass market.
Initial tests seem promising: robot and child bond instantly.
It is almost too easy…
What a good time.
What a clear, straightforward good time at the movies.
Maybe it’s because the last movie I saw in theatres was three hours about blue cat people, but it was so nice to watch a genre flick that was all killer, no filler.
The movie does have some weighty messages - it is about a person learning how to become a parent, and how to support a child to figure out how to process emotions.
But it is not that important - this is a dark comedy about a sentient robot throwing side-eye and passive-aggressive quips at unsuspecting victims, sorry, humans.
The cast are all good: Allison Williams gives Gemma an awkwardness in her dynamic with Violet McGraw’s Cady that feels believable without descending into cliche.
Special credit has to to Amie Donald and Jenna Davis, the actors who bring the titular villain to life.
Donald provides M3GAN’s on-camera performance, including her near-uncanny flexibility and the now-iconic dance sequence. According to the press I read, she is a nationally ranked gymnast and was able to handle most of the role’s physical demands - including the crab walk/run - without the assistance of the visual or special effects departments.
Jenna Davis provides M3GAN’s unnaturally perky voice, moving smoothly between banal positivity and pure venom.
While the dance has become a meme, M3GAN shows a variety of talents that seem to recall the characters of TV kids shows like Sesame Street, Barney and Friends, Mr Rogers’ Neighbourhood and Lambchop’s Playalong - on multiple occasions (equally cheesy and hilarious) M3GAN cheers up Cady by singing popular songs like ‘Titanium’.
Blumhouse are saving low budget high-concept genre fare. The film is on a similar scale to the studio’s earlier hit Upgrade - super-high concept but relatively small-scale.
We get a couple of locations (one of the unintentional highlights was seeing my old university campus used as the corporate HQ), but most of the action is set around Gemma’s home.
This limitation works to the film’s benefit, reinforcing a sense of intimacy and keeping the film closer to its roots in other domestic paranoia subgenres - it touches on the tech-gone-wrong movie, but manages to handle its messaging on the perils of too much screen time without becoming too obvious.
Despite the futuristic premise, the film’s focus is pleasingly personal: part of what makes M3GAN scary is how attached Cady becomes to her. And to the film’s credit, part of the reason is that M3GAN’s programming makes her more reliable as a figure of support and guidance (ala a parent). As she learns, M3GAN becomes more concerned with being the head of the family that Gemma is reluctant to be - leading to their final confrontation.
Hilarious and silly, M3GAN would make a fine companion to last year’s Orphan - First Kill.
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