M3GAN (2023)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Shortly after Cady's parents are killed in a car crash, the young orphan is sent to live with her aunt Gemma. Gemma lives alone and likes it that way; having a child -- one young enough and traumatized enough to need a guardian's affection and attention -- puts quite the thorn into her bouquet. Working as she does in a high-tech toy company, she's got lots of prototypes and memorabilia in her house that aren't meant to be playthings. What is Cady to do, other than hide her feelings and herself out of the way, out of sight?

Thankfully, Gemma --  as a robotics entrepreneur -- is developing the toy to end all toys. She calls it "M3GAN," short for Model 3 Generative Android, a life-sized robot powered by artificial intelligence and programmed to be the ultimate support system for the child paired with it. Bringing her prototype home to Cady, Gemma hopes to test her invention away from the lab, where work on M3GAN had previously been discontinued by her boss to due its expense and some failed experiments. Cady and M3GAN it it off splendidly, as the robot can effortlessly read Cady's body language and hormones to effectively communicate and comfort her, even amidst Cady's shifting moods and developing capacities as a young girl. Gemma is thrilled; M3GAN is a resounding success!

At least, until odd things start happening around the house. Cady's therapist expresses her concerns about Cady's emotional reliance on M3GAN and lack of real socializing; these discussions aren't far from real-life discourses around "screen time" and social media for growing children. The neighbor's dog, a violent pet of a terrible woman, disappears. Cady's bully gets killed during a school field trip. We know full well that M3GAN is responsible, but we're made to witness Gemma coming to that realization slowly, as she realizes that M3GAN's programming to protect Cady has evolved to eliminating any threat to her happiness. How long will it be before Gemma herself is a target?

The first thing you really need to know about M3GAN is that it's ridiculous. Its bonkers premise is something between Ex Machina and Child's Play, and fluidly hopping back and forth from comedy to horror, featuring lengthy intelligent conversations about child-rearing and reliance on technology as well as almost absurdly rote scenes of violence and some schlocky scares. The screenplay by Akela Cooper (who also teamed with James Wan -- here as producer and with story credit -- for Malignant and will again for the upcoming sequel to The Nun) is pretty brilliant, and much smarter than I expected from a movie like this. More comedic than Malignant but no less gleeful in its own wacky audacity, M3GAN plays with our expectations about movies that target kids to create horror. Because Cady isn't really a target; M3GAN is devoted to her. It's everyone else who needs to watch out for violence. We know, and Gemma learns, that the danger to Cady is ultimately emotional and psychological, if M3GAN wins and becomes Cady's codependent twin.

Director Gerard Johnstone (Housebound) and his team work hard to find a balance between intelligent humor and campy horror, and the extent to which they succeed depends on your tolerance for both more than for either. M3GAN's design itself manages to steal the film, filling the uncanny valley with a fabulous new entry to keep you up at night, if you're scared of such things. Her enormous eyes and iconic retro outfits notwithstanding, she exhibits an odd movement style -- including dancing that is as terrifying as it is silly -- and sassy, knowing retorts that have made her a hit especially with the queer community (not dissimilar, I suppose, from the Babadook); just google "M3GAN drag" and you'll see what I mean. Johnstone and Cooper lean into this, along with the film's soundtrack and marketing, to make the film about much more than just science running amok and the themes of coping with grief.

After leaving the cinema, the things that most remain in my mind are the pitch-black comedy and the gaudy, garish way an inhuman being exists in the real world. M3GAN invites us in, like the Emcee in Cabaret, telling us to leave our troubles outside. Tempting, no? The film hinges on its central mother-daughter relationship and threatens that with a new mother-daughter hybrid that mimics the relationships between many drag performers: both loving and backstabbing in turn. Aggressively stylized as it is, I'd have liked the film to be rated a solid R and earn it; its PG-13 rating is most obvious when M3GAN's violence is edited short. But for a January release to have this much artistic integrity and embrace real camp, and as the horror genre flails desperately between earnestness and irony, M3GAN pleasantly surprised me. No wonder a sequel has already been greenlit by Blumhouse.

On a personal note, while I think the film is mostly fine, I just don't really like this subgenre enough to rate M3GAN higher. I saw Child's Play once and can't stand it. Some introspection and reflection is needed, but for some reason stories like this just don't entertain or challenge me much. So while I'd recommend M3GAN without much reserve, I'm not sure I'd ever want to watch it again myself.