CNN
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Runaway technology and killer dolls (from Talking Tina and Chucky in The Twilight Zone) are by no means a new idea, but M3GAN finds a smart way to add to the genre. About 10 minutes later. For parents worried about their kids glued to the screen, the possibility of a murderous android companion sounds like it could be out there, but with Hasbro’s grace, I’m going.
Produced by Horror Factory’s Blumhouse and “The Conjuring”‘s James Wan (who shares story credits with screenwriter Akela Cooper), the film stars Allison Williams as her equivalent of a well-intentioned mad scientist, trying her best. Your plan has gone terribly wrong.
Adding to her terrifying credentials from “Get Out,” Williams’ Gemma is forced to take in her suddenly orphaned 9-year-old niece, Caddy (Violet McGraw), who lost her parents in a car accident. Gemma is single and devoted to developing products as a robotics engineer for a toy company. This includes something called Perpetual Pets, the perfect high-tech pet for a traumatized child who buried a furry friend.
But Gemma set her sights on a more ambitious product: a human-like android that bonds with child owners and learns from their interactions. We gave her a prototype of the Model 3 Generative Android, or M3GAN for short, to fill a void in the girl’s life while impressing her grumpy boss (Ronny Chieng) with its tantalizing commercial potential. .
M3GAN is amazing and a few minor glitches should make everyone a little more worried than they actually are at first. (Add the characters here to your list of people who haven’t seen “Westworld,” or more precisely, the book and his 1970s film that preceded it.)
Of course, the good times don’t last long as M3GAN’s desire to protect Cady and ease her pain becomes increasingly aggressive and sometimes deliciously dark and funny.
Director Gerald Johnstone wisely takes his time and builds well for those moments before the victims and coincidences pile up. A savvy reflection on the dangers, too, Cady becomes a bit of a monster herself when M3GAN’s company is robbed.
In that sense, “M3GAN” is all generally cleverly crowd-pleasing in that it acts as a warning, delivering the necessary tension and terror within modest means and a PG-13 rating. It pricks the needle. Even Gemma’s ignorance of parenting elicits the intended groans and works almost on a comedic level.
Horror has been one of the most reliable genres at the box office since the pandemic began, and ‘M3GAN’ looks poised to continue that streak. If so, M3GAN may not be the last model to come off the Blumhouse assembly line.
“M3GAN” will be released nationwide on January 6th. The rating is PG-13.
