M3GAN

 M3GAN
Starring Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Ronny Chieng
Directed by Gerard Johnstone

The world is more divided than ever, with politics, lifestyles, and personal viewpoints clashing in monumental ways, and it seemed that nothing would come about to unify all the peoples: and then the miracle came in the form of a trailer where a robotic girl did a TikTok-style dance before grabbing a paper cutter to use as a weapon to kill a helpless man. This little doll, this M3GAN, brought the peoples of the world together in perfect unity due to the hilarious nature of her dance, and the rest - as they say - is history. Alright, that might be a wild exaggeration, but the creators of the film "M3GAN" were smart enough to include the dance in the trailer, raising interest in a film that would've otherwise fallen through the cracks of a typical bleak January release and create a viral hit that hasn't been seen since the days of "The Blair Witch Project."

After her parents are killed in a tragic car accident, young Cady (Violet McGraw) is adopted by her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams), a roboticist who doesn't have a parenting bone in her body, but does so because she promised her sister that she'd take care of Cady if anything happened to them. Not knowing how to care for her, Gemma instead delved deeper into her work and created a new friend for Cady in the form of M3GAN (Moden 3 Generative ANdroid), a lifelike robotic doll who continually learns, adapts, and serves to take care of whoever she's bonded to - in this case Cady. M3GAN (Amie Donald) and Cady bond immediately, and with her help Cady confronts her deepest fears about losing her parents, and Gemma's boss David (Ronny Chieng) sees a lucrative cash cow in M3GAN, and Gemma rises the ranks at her job. At first M3GAN served as the perfect friend for Cady, but as time went on Gemma learned that not only is M3GAN the perfect friend, but the perfect parent as well, giving her more time to herself at the cost of spending time with her niece. As the two bond deeper, M3GAN's programming goes array and she sets out to end anyone who hurts Cady - permanently.

The idea of the killer doll is nothing new to cinema and television, dating way back to Otto in 1929's "The Great Gabbo" and Talky Tina in the 1963 episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "Living Doll," but the most popular killer doll is undoubtedly Chucky from the "Child's Play" films and television series. The serial killer Charles Lee Ray transferred his soul into a Good Guy doll and has spent the last thirty-plus years trying to find a body to inhabit. A few years ago a reboot came along and the result was nothing short of catastrophic, turning Chucky from a killer doll with the soul of a serial killer into a killer robot doll who's programming was faulty, and even though it was voiced by the great Mark Hamill, it was a bomb. "M3GAN" proves that the robot killer doll story can be done, and done well, by understanding its audience and knowing not to take itself too seriously. By blending horror with dark humor, "M3GAN" became something greater than the sum of its subpar parts and has turned into a cultural phenomenon, which again wouldn't have worked if not for the ingenious marketing campaign. 

For all intents and purposes, "M3GAN" is your typical doll-gone-wrong slasher film where her unassuming nature makes her the perfect killer, but the film does so much more with what it's given. More than just mindless slashing, "M3GAN" - like the parts that puts the titular killer doll together - is created by different parts that work together in (almost) perfect tandem. While the slashing is there (and M3GAN does indeed slay like the queen she is), it's also a deep study on grief as well as our dependency on technology and how we rely on that technology to parent for us - but while these are heavy-hitting themes, they're told through dark comedy that allows the film to never take itself too serious in a melodramatic way: after all, at its essence it's really about a killer robot doll with killer dance moves.

The film centers around young Cady, played brilliantly by "The Haunting of Hill House" star Violet McGraw, and how she handles the grief of dealing with the sudden death of her parents - not just that, but also being in the car when the accident happens. She's adopted by her caring yet detached aunt who doesn't really know how to parent, which only isolates Cady more. The beginning of the film is the most emotional and, honestly, the most boring as Cady wanders aimlessly while Gemma sits aloof not knowing what to do, and it's the film's weakest moments - until M3GAN arrives, that is. With M3GAN's arrival, the film amps up in every way, but not in the way you'd expect. M3GAN is the perfect friend for Cady, but she's so much more than that: in the film's deepest emotional moment, Cady confides in M3GAN her worries about forgetting her parents, which to my shock I found a tear rolling down my cheek when I wasn't expecting it. Thankfully those tears were replaced by tears of laughter later on, but it really nailed the point about grief in a surprisingly emotional way, giving M3GAN even more of an emotional resonance not just for Cady, but the audience as well.

It's old hat nowadays to talk about the dependence we have on technology, and "M3GAN" probes that thought from the get-go with the first scene being a silly commercial about a new Furby-like toy that poops, and it's the toy that Cady has in the car before the accident - a toy created by Gemma and the toy factory she works for. Much like that toy that relies on technology for it to run, M3GAN herself is technology personified, a robot automaton that is not just the child's best friend but surrogate mother, teaching her the importance of using coasters, washing her hands after using the bathroom, and supplying random facts that it downloads from the cloud. At first Gemma is more than pleased by the outcome so she can focus on her work, but it becomes apparent that Cady's reliance on M3GAN begins to warp the young girl's mind as M3GAN becomes something like a drug to the girl - so much so when Gemma begins worrying M3GAN is a killer, she forbids Cady from seeing her, leading the girl to resort to a temper tantrum not seen on the screen since that annoying boy from "The Babadook." Any parent who's had to take technology from their child can attest that they freak out when this happens (thankfully I have no such children to worry about), and "M3GAN" handles this in a surprisingly relatable way.

Yet the film is a slasher, and M3GAN delivers despite the neutered-down PG-13 rating. What makes M3GAN a standout from the likes of Chucky is that she's got an emotional resonance from the start, and unlike Chucky she doesn't want to kill her owner - but protect her at all costs. This leads to her programming getting screwed up and sees everyone as a threat, and sets out to protect Cady at all costs: murder being the easiest option. The kills are unique, fun, and hilarious, but through the comedy there's still unnerving moments as M3GAN's movements become more erratic and crisp, akin to Samara coming out of the well in "The Ring." The music also intensifies creating a sense of dread (after the upbeat song used for the trailer's dance-murder) and adds to the tension at the end.

Apart from Violet McGraw's performance, the other main actors also give it their all, especially modern-day horror icon Allison Williams, after having appeared in the Oscar-nominated film "Get Out" as well as the Netflix horror "The Perfection." Here she plays Gemma with a sense of emotional resonance and detachment due to her inability to care for a child that's not hers, because she doesn't have a nurturing bone in her body despite her desire to do so. She means well by creating M3GAN, but in the process she creates her own Frankenstein monster that's adapt at murder and even more adapt at intelligence, witty comebacks, and of course killer dance moves.

M3GAN is a mixture of different factors that come together to create the perfect lifelike doll while also giving her a continual sense of unease due to her robotic nature that's masked through the identity of a little girl (in one of the film's most hilarious scenes, an unwitting woman sees both M3GAN and Cady in the backseat of Gemma's car, and thinks both are little girls until M3GAN talks, leading her to jump). The effects studio Weta FX (founded by Peter Jackson and used in the "Lord of the Rings" films, among others) blends different factors to create the doll and makes it seamless. Amie Donald served as the physical performance of M3GAN, and effects supervisors Adrien Morot and Kathy Tse enhanced her look with digital visual effects, and her design came from director Gerard Johnstone who "looked to screen icons from the '50s like Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Kim Novak for inspiration...with some '70s naturalism to counteract her synthetic nature, so the hair is one hundred percent Peggy Lipton." Add the robotic yet surprisingly human-sounding voice work by  Jenna Davis, and you got the perfect unsuspecting killing machine in M3GAN.

By not taking itself too seriously yet also introducing serious themes, "M3GAN" serves as a fantastic horror film with its own message, not alienating the younger audience but drawing them in due to the viral marketing campaign that made M3GAN a household name before the film's release. The slasher aspect is front and center once M3GAN arrives on scene, and through blending comedy and horror it crafts a unique tale not without its flaws but they're easily overlooked by the enjoyment you have by watching it. And much like other horror films in the past, here's hoping M3GAN finds new life again and again because we need more of this robotic queen's homicidal tendencies.

The Score: A-