What makes the horror genre so endearing to audiences is not just the type of scares that the films generate, but moreso the creativity that goes into making them work so effectively as horror stories when executed masterfully. The most successful horror films are those which find new ways of terrifying their audiences. That is especially true of Universal Pictures M3GAN. Despite never being truly scary, M3GAN delivers as being a solidly entertaining horror-comedy that puts its own fun spin on the killer doll genre while inserting clever bits of camp humor to the story.
M3GAN's plot has a young girl named Cady being sent to live with her workaholic aunt after surviving a tragic car crash that claimed the lives of her parents. While doing so, the latter builds her niece an AI doll named M3GAN, that's directed to keep the child safe. However, when a series of violent acts and disappearances occur, suspicions arise with questions regarding the closeness of their relationship coming into question. To horror fans, M3GAN's plot is essentially Chucky meets Terminator with the film providing the rare opportunity for a horror film to be both equally funny and terrifying. Despite leaning on familiar source material to craft its own horror tale, M3GAN does so in a way that makes it feel refreshing as well as being self-aware in what type of story it wants to be. For horror fans, M3GAN delivers loads of fun while brilliantly presenting audiences with a new face of terror.
When it comes to performances, M3GAN's cast convincingly plays their characters with each actress and actor appearing to have a complete blast in doing so. Allison Williams excels as roboticist Gemma, who works at the high-tech Seattle toy company Funki. Williams does well with conveying her characters inexperience towards parenting as well as being engulfed with work. Violet McGraw gives an impressive performance as Gemma's young niece Cady, whose still coping with the loss of her parents and finds a companion in M3gan. Both Williams and McGraw effectively portray their characters struggle in adapting to their new living situation with their dynamic feeling natural. The character of M3GAN is played well by young Amie Donald acting out the character in suit with Jenna Davis providing the voice. Both actresses do a fantastic job of bringing the character to life and making her delightfully fun for audiences. The rest of the cast churn out solid work including Ronny Chieng as Gemma's demanding boss David, Jen Van Epps and Brian Jordan Alvarez as Gemma's faithful colleagues, Tess and Cole, Stephane Garneau-Monten as David's assistant Kurt, and Lori Dungey as Gemma's neighbor Cecilia. Much of M3GAN's level of fun comes from the admirable effort that its extremely talented and notably diverse cast put into making the story work here with the results being genuinely satisfying.
When it comes to directing, M3GAN helmer Gerard Johnstone steadily builds up the suspense while making the titular characters CGI work look impressive given that the film costs just $12 million to make. With the PG-13 rating, Johnstone presents the violence as being tame with much of its gore being left up to the audiences imagination. The gruesome moments that are actually shown include a sequence involving characters ear being ripped off with quick shots of blood, another character being shot with a nail gun, and one being sprayed by a chemical sprayer. Despite the films surprising PG-13 rating that's uncommon for most horror films, Johnstone still finds ways to present the violence as being strong though relatively clean. At 102 minutes, M3GAN's story is kept fast-paced with horror fans never left feeling bored but always kept waiting in anticipation to see what happens next. Overall, Johnstone does a noteworthy job of crafting a new kind of killer robot tale that's thrilling, funny, and looks more expensive than what the film actually cost with its use of fairly decent CGI.
As with any movie plot that revolves around the concept of killer machines becoming self-aware and ultimately turning against their creators, M3GAN's story embraces these themes and throws its own fun spin on them. Other themes including loss, grief, and desiring a parental figure for support are prevalent here with Cady struggling to cope with the loss of her parents and forming a close relationship with M3GAN, given that Gemma is too preoccupied with work as well as being inexperienced to be a parental figure. The real thrill that audiences get with watching the story, is witnessing Cady's bond with M3GAN with the latter becoming more protective with her as she begins to defy basic commands and inflict harm on others she perceived as a threat to Cady. This is where the film works at its maximum level and also functions as being its heart. The films supporting characters for the most part are one dimensional and mainly exist to help further the plot along to the next intended scary moment involving M3GAN. As a whole, M3GAN's writing is serviceable enough to make its concept work while demonstrating a healthy amount of creativity.
Where M3GAN lacks in true scares, it more than makes up for with unexpected laughs and providing a tired old trope such as killer dolls with a slick makeover. Horror fans will undoubtedly get a kick out of some of M3GAN's catchy one-liners like "This is the part where you run" after slicing a characters ear off, or her becoming defiant to basic commands saying "Oh, I'm afraid that won't work anymore, Cady. I have a new primary user now: me." On the conditions that one isn't looking for something truly scary and doesn't mind an equal amount of laughs combined with chills, they'll find M3GAN to be a genuinely fun experience.
Final Verdict: Worth A Watch but also can be enjoyed streaming at home.
Images Courtesy Of Universal Pictures.
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