M3GAN

The killer doll story has been a subset of horror for decades. Early instances of the well-worn trope can be found in Dead of Night (1945) and TV’s The Twilight Zone (1959). The 1970s reintroduced the concept with Trilogy of Terror (1975), Magic (1978), and Tourist Trap (1979), but it popped up the most during the 1980s in films like The Pit (1981), Poltergeist (1982), Ghoulies (1985), Dolls (1986), Child’s Play (1988) and Puppet Master (1989). Recent additions include Annabelle (2014), The Boy (2016), and Sabrina (2018). It’s time to add yet another entry to the fold. Meet M3GAN (pronounced MEGAN), an innovative life-sized action figure who can walk and talk…and dance, but I wouldn’t expect a meaningful discourse. Her existence adds nothing to the conversation.

M3GAN is a downright lazy interpretation of a basic idea. Gemma (Allison Williams) is a roboticist at Funki, a technological toy company. M3GAN (played by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis) is short for Model 3 Generative Android. Wide-eyed and girly, the doll is suitably creepy and the production design’s best asset. Gemma is working on this artificial intelligence (AI) robot for children at home. The toy is still in the prototype stage. Gemma’s 8-year-old niece Cady (Violet McGraw), is currently staying with her. Cady is struggling to come to terms with the death of her parents. M3GAN appears to be a good surrogate for her grief. Gemma is pleased by this as she can spend less time being a parent. Kudos to Allison Williams for portraying a cold personality that is, unfortunately, more realistic than people would care to admit. Gemma’s co-worker (Jen Van Epps) and Cady’s therapist (Amy Usherwood) are concerned with M3GAN’s growing presence in Cady’s life. We, the audience, were worried the second we saw the strangely lifelike doll because (ahem) we have seen movies before.

Horror films work when they can shock or scare us. M3GAN fails in this regard. We’ve had at least 80 years of the cinematic trope, so it’s astonishing to see a picture in 2023 do so little with the formula. M3GAN has been programmed to protect Cady emotionally and physically. Her AI grows more advanced as she bonds with Cady until — surprise! — the doll becomes sentient. The toy exhibits hostility whenever she spies a danger to her human companion. Naturally, this progresses into her killing the people and animals she deems a threat. The plot shuffles down a predictable path. As a result, there’s no tension or suspense other than waiting for the current scene to end so we can see the next obvious development.

M3GAN is spooky but lacks scares. However, that isn’t the raison d’être of this PG-13-rated fluff. It’s trying to be funny, but having a robot use words like “bitch” when she gets angry is just scraping the bottom of the barrel for wit. M3GAN inexplicably swaying to a pop song in the trailer inspired a TikTok trend. The marketing team wisely capitalized on this situation and hired a troupe of eight dancers dressed like M3GAN to move in a choreographed routine at the premiere and other random events. This makes the much shorter 10-second blink-and-you-miss-it dance in the actual film seem even more like a missed opportunity.

M3GAN isn’t campy enough. This is surprising because screenwriter Akela Cooper wrote Malignant, which had a zany sensibility you couldn’t predict. See the infinitely superior Bride of Chucky for an example of true outrageousness. The fourth installment in the Child’s Play franchise took doll-on-doll relations to the next level. Now that’s camp! And while we’re at it, the concept of an electronic device designed to entertain and mentor children isn’t even outlandish anymore. Count how many tots at the mall have their eyes glued to an iPad and not their parents. I know, 20 years ago, it would’ve been a TV at home. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Speaking of the status quo, the first month of the year has traditionally been the dumping ground for Hollywood studios. M3GAN is indeed a movie released by Universal Pictures on January 6th.

01-05-23