M3GAN

Movie Name: M3GAN
Year of Release: 2022
Director: Gerard Johnstone
Starring: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Ronny Chieng, Jenna Davis, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Stephane Garneau-Monten, Lori Dungey, Amy Usherwood
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 6
Watch it on Amazon Prime

Synopsis and Review

The collaboration between writer/director James Wan and prolific producer Jason Blum continues, having started in 2010 with the Leigh Whannell's penned "Insidious", which started a franchise of its own, stretching all the way to this recently released "M3GAN". The film follows the story of Cady, an 8 year old girl, whose life is suddenly upended when both her parents die in a car crash. Cady is placed under the care of her aunt Gemma, an ambitious engineer who is working on a high risk project for a toy company. Gemma and her team are developing a humanoid robot, one that is powered by Artificial Intelligence. Though the work in progress has a poor showing to her boss, Gemma and her team persevere and M3GAN's prototype is finalized. In order to test it, M3GAN is paired with Cady, as a trusted companion and protector of the young girl. Cady becomes more and more attached to M3GAN, which raises some concerns to her therapist. After a violent incident with Gemma's neighbor's dog, M3GAN's behavior starts to take on worrisome tones, since on her quest to protect Cady, she starts viciously eliminating all sorts of threats, be it real or potential.

Gerard Johnstone's "M3GAN" has the benefit of knowing it's a genre film, and joyously plays with its conventions, surfacing at times some references which includes the works of Don Mancini's "Child's Play" series, but also faint echoes of Steven Spielberg's "A.I". The director manages to briefly establish the premise of the film, and though Cady is front and center of the film and focus of M3GAN herself, she's more of a vessel for what's happening, with the director choosing to focus on the awakening of the parenting responsibilities which occurs for Gemma, a much more career driven personality at the beginning of the feature (which has some ties with other features which illustrated how professional women tackle unexpected mothering challenges includes Charles Shyer's "Baby Boom" and even Gore Verbinski's "The Ring"). However, and unlike Tom Holland's "Child's Play" or that series of films, M3GAN as a character has both a look and behavior pattern which is immediately indicative of the troubles that will soon surface, and in that regard, the film doesn't hide its intentions. It's ultimately an unpretentious and somewhat gory B-movie, featuring a fairly competent if rather unremarkable cast, with solid production values, including Peter McCaffrey's cinematography and Kim Sinclair's production design. Worth watching.