Nerdly » ‘M3gan’ Review

11th Jan2023

‘M3gan’ Review

by Matthew Turner

Stars: Allison Williams, Jenna Davis, Amie Donald, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng, Jen Van Epps, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Lori Dungey | Written by Akela Cooper | Directed by Gerard Johnstone

You really can’t go wrong with a killer robot movie, and this one delivers all the requisite robo-thrills. Produced by Blumhouse (another good sign), it’s directed by Gerard Johnstone (Housebound) and features Get Out star Allison Williams in the lead.

The film opens with a snowy car crash, in which 12 year old Cady (Violet McGraw) tragically loses both her parents. She’s sent to live with her tech genius single aunt Gemma (Williams), who’s just putting the finishing touches to her ambitious robo-project, code-named M3GAN (for Model 3 Generative ANdroid).   Since M3GAN is designed to be a high-tech toy for children, she needs to be paired with a host in order to learn properly, so Gemma ropes in Cady to help with the testing phase. However, M3GAN bonds with Cady faster than anyone had bargained for, and it isn’t long before she becomes pathologically protective, to the point of eliminating anyone or anything that poses a threat to her “primary user”.

M3GAN (physically performed by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis) is a suitably creepy creation, essentially combining the Annabelle doll and HAL 9000 in a super-strong robo-body. As such, it’s a lot of fun to watch the character’s escalation – for example, this is the sort of film where you quickly realise that the vicious dog next door isn’t going to last long.

In terms of character design, M3GAN has a good line in unsettling robo-stares (slow turn of the head, unblinking “eyes” and so on), but the filmmakers have also had fun with the idea, throwing in both unexpected dance moves (shades of Ex_Machina) and a familiar animal-like running style that seems like a deliberate in-joke for horror nerds.

However, the inspired touch is Jenna Davis’ excellent voice work, which is originally child-like, as per M3GAN’s design specifications, and becomes gradually more adult as she gains self-awareness, eventually flipping erratically between the two as she becomes less stable.

On a similar note, Williams makes an excellent lead, and the film takes a refreshing and interesting stance on the fact that she’s actually not very maternal and much more interested in her own robo-project than in being a mother figure for her own niece. That gives the film an intriguing level of darkness – Gemma’s initial reaction is one of delight, because she’s essentially created a robo-nanny.

The supporting performances don’t get much of a look in, but there are solid turns from Jen Van Epps and Brian Jordan Alvarez, while Lori Dungey is good value as Gemma’s annoying neighbour. Elsewhere, Ronny Chieng – as Gemma’s boss, David – gives a performance where it’s either really bad acting, or a series of deliberate choices intended to cast David in a comically bad light. It’s hard to tell which.

Gerard Johnstone has a firm grasp of the material, striking a perfect balance between black comedy and robo-thrills, with the occasional spot of camp thrown in. To that end, it’s fair to say that the film scores higher on tension and creepiness than it does on actual scares, but it’s consistently entertaining, so it’s hard to complain.

The script – by Malignant screenwriter Akela Cooper, from a story by Cooper and James Wan – is genre-savvy enough to know that a large part of the pleasure of these movies is in the escalation, particularly when it comes to the grisly ends of largely deserving victims. Summer school bully Brandon (Jack Cassidy), for example, gets exactly what’s coming to him and few people in the audience will be sorry to see him go.

In short, this is a thoroughly entertaining robo-thriller that, like Malignant, shows every sign of becoming a cult hit. At any rate, the door has been left open for a sequel (in a nice little final touch), so MEG4N won’t be far behind.