Review: Killerdoll Horrorcomedy 'M3GAN' Is Delightfully Deranged
Last fall, the internet witnessed a rare phenomenon: the meteoric rise and meme of a new star catapulted to universality by a single 2.5-minute trailer. But M3GAN is no ordinary girl - the Tamagotchi is a realistic and powerful robot doll equipped with machine learning capabilities that make her look like child's play.
Chucky from "Terminator" with "Annabelle" wig, the younger sister of "The Bad Sid" or "Ex-Machine" aura, M3GAN has a sharp eye and a sharp slap. You can run, but you sure can't hide, so say hello to your new horror movie obsession (and get ready for your next Halloween costume) with the joy of Malignant in James' magical M3GAN Wan and Akel Cooper.
Director Gerard Johnstown gives Wan and Cooper's script what it deserves as a straightforward horror movie that doesn't wink and sting audiences in the ribs at the same time. Primarily a comedy before a horror film, “M3GAN” opens with a bang, teasing the audience with laughter before saturating it with violence and trauma.
The unique tone is anchored by star Allison Williams, who has surprisingly become one of our top women in horror, bringing her incredible mark to movies like Exodus, Perfection, and now M3GAN. Williams' deliberate lack of influence makes his characters slick, difficult to pre-split into good and bad binaries.
"M3GAN" is Dr. Williams. The Frankenstein that the player plays is a toy-maker who looks like a robotics genius. He's hard at work on a Perpetual Petz prototype for his strict boss David (the excellent Ronnie Chung) at Funky Toys when he gets a call that his sister and brother-in-law have died in an accident and he will take over. for tutoring her cousin Cady (Violet McGrath). Career-conscious Gemma isn't quite sure how to bond with a child, so she revives her aborted project, M3GAN (played by Amy Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis), as a kind of friend to her lonely niece and troubled.
He lives! And that's impressive, especially according to Cady, who loves watching M3GAN marvel at each other. Gemma takes the M3GAN and Caddy to a demo for David, and ignoring Caddy's therapist's warnings about potential commitment issues, Gemma and Funky soon plan to publicly announce a high-tech toy to replace it. But neither M3GAN nor Caddy likes to share toys, and M3GAN's "training protocol" is far more advanced and unregulated than Gemma expected.
“M3GAN” plays with recurring ideas in techno-horror: our overreliance on machines and technology, and our lack of trust in them, whether humanity likes it or not. But “M3GAN” also introduces a new element into the mix: parental fear. What "learning protocols" do parents instill in their beloved pets without even realizing it?
'M3GAN' offers incredible jumps in a fun ride that elicits more laughs than groans, but behind the shiny surface it also makes some interesting connections to the 'M3GAN' board. If HAL-9000 could see M3GAN - and its dance moves - now, it would be proud. More than just a trip to the theater, M3GAN has earned its status on the meme docket.
Cathy Walsh is a film critic for the Tribune News Service.
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
