Robo Watch: M3GAN (2022)

Watched:  06/21/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gerard Johnstone

I don't jump on too many new horror movies.  If they're still in the zeitgeist a couple years out, sure.  

M3GAN (2022) did a very respectable box office of $180 million, bringing in a younger crowd with a PG-13 rating and a premise I think would appeal to a wide age range.  As pal Michael would point out, not bad for a movie that cost about $12 million before marketing.

If I had any spark of interest, it was to see how the performer(s) handled M3GAN as a character, and how they'd think about robots, AI, logic leading to mayhem, etc...  Things handled pretty well in Ex Machina and Westworld in recent memory.  As a product of Blumhouse,* this was going to need to fit a certain mold, so we know where it's headed to a degree before we even flip the movie on.

I'll start at the end - and that's to say, this movie's last third is exactly what you expect.  The AI goes crazy, gets quippy, and mayhem ensues.  For your kid's first horror movie, it's good stuff.  For everyone else, it's a bit of a letdown, even if it's well executed.  But we've also seen it before.  And that's a bummer because the first half or more of this movie is really pretty interesting.  

SPOILERS

Sure, there's a lot of "been there, done that" tropeyness, but I think with this movie the devil is in the details.  

First, I *could* make my usual complaint that this movie starts a few times, but the pre-story starts help to really set the tone.  We know what this movie is going to be from the commercial for the Pur-Petual toy and it's cheeky horror, followed quickly by seeing how it's deployed in the wild, and the triangle of horror that is an obnoxious, annoying toy - a kid's joyful addiction to said toy - and a parent who wants a happy kid but is ready to shoot the toy out of a cannon.   

The movie is set in the more-or-less present, as an engineer (Allison Williams) at a toy company making the faux-furbees has to take custody of her young niece, who has just been orphaned in a car-crash.  Gemma, the engineer, is supposed to be making a cheaper, more competitive version of her furbee, but has been, instead, working to develop a functioning AI-driven walking, talking doll, M3GAN (Model 3 Generative ANdroid).

A driven, single, child-free engineer, Gemma lives to work, and isn't wired for child-rearing.  She hasn't been in her niece, Cady's, life and there's a lot of initial awkwardness and sadness as Cady mourns her mother (it's insinuated Gemma and her sister weren't close, and there's no mourning on her side, in part because there's no time).  Soon, she introduces her niece to M3GAN, and the two are literally linked via M3GAN's programming.  

I really dug the creativity shown in the film, especially in the first half.  A lot of thinking went into the logic of what the team thought they were making with a walking, talking doll.  And how that gets interpreted by the doll herself, as she has a form of consciousness.  There's a lot of fun in those scenes and as it becomes hinted at that things are off as the robot delights, out performing expectations technically, but also able to help Cady sort through her trauma.  

A very clever bit is that Cady actually isn't doing so well, and lashes out from time to time.  I really liked this part of the thought that went into the movie - I feel like kid roles like this turn the kid into a MacGuffin or want to not let the kid be a real character.  But Cady's relationship with M3GAN makes sense - and her panic when M3GAN and her eternal patience and enthusiasm for Cady (something Gemma is largely incapable of) is removed, it's buyable.  

My only real beef with the movie is that it feels like they held back at the end.  A lot was implied about M3GAN's capabilities, so even after the kinda-predictable heel-turn and M3GAN taking out "threats", I was thinking this movie could go a lot of places.  Going for a standard issue face-off in the house wasn't *bad*, it just didn't push the potential.  But, horror loves a sequel, and so even now the team is off making the next installment, and you up antes in sequels.  

But... y'all know me.  I also like it when a movie goes bonkers at the end, puts it all on the table, and doesn't worry about where you can take the next movie.  

I started watching the movie because there was some debate amongst some pals if M3GAN herself is categorized as "Uncanny Valley", and I think there are a few answers to that question.**

If nothing else, the performances that made up M3GAN and the design is wild.  I don't know what I was expecting, but this team (chef's kiss).  Jenna Davis' vocal performance, Amie Donald (a child actor, I guess?) mix of naturalism and robotic movements is nuts.  But it's also a mix of Donald, stand-in dolls, animatronics, etc...  And tip of the hat, because the overall effect is really solid.  I get why the character became a thing.  

The writing is also solid for M3GAN, retaining a soft childlike voice while communicating complex ideas to Cady in terms she's interested in enough to understand.  She's friend, therapist, playmate and co-parent in a way that the movie absolutely is concerned with.

I like star Allison Williams.  Were this movie made a decade ago when they could afford her, that's Rebecca Hall - and I can see Hall doing her Tales from the Loop icy-distance thing here.  Williams isn't as dramatic, but she's utterly buyable as the aunt who is being ripped from her other priorities.

 

It's a very *watchable* film and served perfectly well for a pivot after 8 1/2.  And, of course, it was a delight to see a movie like this where they really did worry about small details, most logic holes movies like this gloss over, etc...  and, yeah, I'll be watching the sequel eventually.

*I feel like Blumhouse more or less is just working their way through every iteration of horror present in A Cabin in the Woods sometimes, and their Blumhouse intro slug isn't convincing me otherwise

**Uncanny Valley was used to describe the attempts to make characters look human and getting close but not. quite. there.  The notion was usually applied to early CGI characters who looked dead in the eyes, moved oddly, etc..., but it could apply as well to, say, animatronics IRL.  I'll argue that M3GAN is very intentionally living in Uncanny Valley, and it's remarkable how much thought the team put into it to sort out what's the best way to communicate this in face design, in movement, in expression (or lack thereof).