After watching M3gan dance her way across social media into the hallowed halls of true internet fame, you might think there couldn't be much more going on in the film. M3gan has a potent punch that takes a few narrative bugs and turns them into a delightfully comical horror feature.
Another tale of what happens when A.I.-powered androids become too sentient is what M3gan is about. M3gan goes for the jugular by focusing on the real anxieties that can come with parenting and the way that people sometimes try to deal with those feelings by over-relying on tools.
Cady is loved by every adult in her life. Cady's parents are busy, distracted, and constantly being pulled in a million different directions, which is why interactive, Furby-like toys called Perpetual Pets are such a hit. Parents can feel like their children are always being engaged and know that they can always turn the talking, chirpy, farting creatures off with the accompanying app, if they choose to, with a Perpetual Pet. When a commotion involving Cady's pet leads to a terrible accident that orphans her, both her and her aunt's lives are thrown into turmoil.
Image: Universal Pictures
With a deadline looming over her, neither grieving her sister nor taking in her niece are things she is expected to have on her plate. The stress and messiness of their situation pushes Gemma to finally put the finishing touches on her very expensive, very ethically dubious side project.
Though the first of M3gan's hysterical fake commercials for Perpetual Pets gives you a solid sense of its humor, the movie takes a bit of time as it's first power up and setting the stage for a story that's surprisingly thoughtful. Cady isn't comfortable with her aunt being too focused on her job and more so because they are both experiencing a kind of grief that is difficult to express for the first time. Some of M3gan's most effective scenes feel like they could have been from a simpler drama. The kid in the film is full of anguish, and he is played by a man who feels checked out for most of the film. The movie starts to come to life in an impressively satisfying way when Cady and M3gan begin to become friends.
The movie M3gan encourages you to have a laugh at the silliness of its premise because the doll starts killing people. It isn't reinventing the wheel, it's self aware. It is yassifying the classic killer toy + public formula and using the result to do some solid bits with one of the most unnerving dolls to star in a film.
Image: Universal Pictures
M3gan feels like a dangerous machine that is always ready to shift gears and hunt on all fours because of Donald's human performance. Some of M3gan's funniest scenes seem to be human actors acting opposite of a lifeless prop made to seem like it's moving with in-camera tricks. There are moments where M3gan just pops into frame, and you can't tell if she's an actor crouching down, or if she's wearing a M3gan mask.
If you see an actor holding a mannequin child's hand up to their throat, it almost always works in context because of how ridiculous the movie becomes. At times, you can see the tape and glue metaphorically holding M3gan together, and the movie feels inconsistent more often than not. M3gan is able to redeem itself partly because it never feels like it is trying to take itself all that seriously and because of how it manages to pull off an amazing number of pointed jokes about being addicted to screen time.
M3gan is a film that more than punches above its weight class and understands the value of being less than two hours.
Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Stephane Garneau-Monten, and Arlo Green are all actors. On January 6th, the movie will be in theaters.
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