The title character of “M3GAN,” a cunningly preposterous and equally intelligent satirical sci-fi horror movie, is a gorgeous terrifying android doll from hell who doesn’t resemble previous evil cinematic playthings. Amie Donald is a real actor underneath those placid soft features, which helps to put this humanoid in her own uncanny valley. Her oversize light grey eyes, smooth alabaster skin, and mouth that grins, pouts, and signals approval or displeasure have all been enhanced with a heavy layer of digital effects. You may say that M3GAN reaches the pinnacle of dollhood as a character. She has a wholly false but also entirely authentic appearance.
Robotics engineer Gemma (Allison Williams) works at the Funki Toy firm, where she creates gadgets like PurrpetualPetz, a programmable fuzzball that eats, defecates, and snarks. Gemma, though, has loftier goals. The prototype for M3GAN (short for Model 3 Generative Android) was built using a steel skeleton, silicon skin, lasers, radar, and a very advanced artificial intelligence that enables her to speak like the world’s funniest Siri companion with $100,000 taken from the corporation. (Jenna Davis lends her voice, a saccharine and blatantly naive girl-next-door coo.)
The question of whether M3GAN has a mind of her own would be teased if “M3GAN” had even the slightest hint of subtlety. But the movie makes it clear right away that she most definitely does. M3GAN is like HAL 9000 meets a lost Olsen sister meets Chucky thanks to her awesome encyclopaedic knowledge of everything, ability to respond to you like a surrogate parent, soulful bestie, self-actualizing therapist, conspiratorial mean girl, or musical songbird who, if you’re down, will serenade you with a soft-rock rendition of “Titanium.”
She takes on an unmistakable air of foreboding when the action picks up, similar to one of those Diane Arbus twins from “The Shining” combined with the Terminator. She will become quite upset if things don’t go her way, but she will do so with a touch of attitude, like when she tells the bully bugging Cady, “This is the part when you flee.”
As you may have guessed, “M3GAN” is unduly reliant on pop-culture icons, yet despite this, it manages to be an entertaining genre movie with a good sense of humour. The majority of films released during the first week of January have a tendency to be completely disposable, but “M3GAN” nearly has the makings of a cult classic, the kind of thriller that garners a tiny but loyal audience and perhaps even inspires a sequel or two. The movie may be enjoyed as a high-kitsch warning tale at a time when technology, especially for children, is replacing human interaction as a kind of companionship without having to be taken seriously.
Williams, one of the movie’s executive producers (the other two high-profile producer-auteurs are James Wan and Jason Blum), gives Gemma a winningly jovial, occasionally illogical hyperrationality that makes her the movie’s protagonist and its comparatively innocent Dr. Frankenstein of the digital age. Robotics prodigy Gemma had been told by her supervisor to stop working on the M3GAN project. But the movie’s opening (artificial) disaster encourages her to go with it anyhow. Her little niece Cady (Violet McGraw), together with her parents, are out skiing when, in a bizarre accident, a snowplough runs over their automobile.
The recently orphaned kid is placed in Gemma’s care, and although though she looks completely clueless about what someone Cady’s age may need (such, instance, a bedtime story), her failure as a carer is intentional for the sarcastic tone of the movie. In the world of “M3GAN,” which is our reality, parents who complain about how much screen time they give their kids nonetheless give in to the urge because it feels both natural and inevitable. According to the movie, we already allow computer technology to parent our children. The natural conclusion of that pattern is M3GAN, the willowy programmed companion who always says the ideal thing.
Everything else seems dull in comparison to their relationship, at least in Cady’s eyes, as she imprints her fingers on M3GAN’s palm and instinctively programmes the doll to become her particular friend. The movie compares Gemma’s desire to make M3GAN into a popular new product with their exclusive bond. She locks M3GAN and Cady in a playroom with one-way glass and uses them to show her employer what the toy can do (played, with a riveting short fuse, by Ronny Chieng). He buys it and starts organising the marketing launch of this ground-breaking new toy, which will be offered for $10,000 each.
Everything else seems dull in comparison to their relationship, at least in Cady’s eyes, as she imprints her fingers on M3GAN’s palm and instinctively programmes the doll to become her particular friend. The movie compares Gemma’s desire to make M3GAN into a popular new product with their exclusive bond. She locks M3GAN and Cady in a playroom with one-way glass and uses them to show her employer what the toy can do (played, with a riveting short fuse, by Ronny Chieng). He buys it and starts organising the marketing launch of this ground-breaking new toy, which will be offered for $10,000 each.
Nevertheless, M3GAN’s speech has sneaky moments of wit. Even when she’s furious, she can find the perfect business term to fit the situation. The “Annabelle” trilogy (also produced by Wan) and the Karen Black segment of “Trilogy of Terror” (1975) are examples of previous demon-doll films, but “M3GAN” also has its own hilarious throwaway token significance. The real target of the movie’s satire is all of us, or at least those who now consider the mirror provided by artificial intelligence to be a legitimate form of communication.
Official Trailer of M3GAN:
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