Review: M3GAN

Allison Williams plays a robotics whiz at a toy company whose latest invention – a lifelike android given the acronym M3GAN flops with her boss (Ronny Chieng, once again proving he’s a comedian and not an actor). She then receives devastating news that her sister has been killed in a car accident along with her brother-in-law. Williams is now tasked with the guardianship of the couple’s likely traumatised daughter (Violet McGraw). Said daughter takes an immediate fancy to M3GAN, and that’s where the trouble starts.

 

So far as A.I.-assisted killer doll films go, this 2022 outing from Kiwi director Gerard Johnstone is a step up from the “Child’s Play” remake/reboot. Which is to say it still largely sucks. Scripted by Akela Cooper (the overrated “Malignant”) from a story by Cooper and James Wan, I didn’t buy into the hype for this one and it turns out I was right to be sceptical. It’s a pretty uninteresting affair that wants to play on the (in my view greatly overstated) fears about A.I. technology, but botches it in the execution. Why is the doll evil and manipulative, for instance? Apparently due to an inadequate, nebulous ‘You were lazy in programming me so I had to figure it out for myself’ explanation, which doesn’t answer a thing when you give it a moment’s thought. Meanwhile, there’s some relatively interesting ideas brought forth through a psychologist character, but that is undercut by the absolutely dreadful performance given by Amy Usherwood in the role. So even the one halfway interesting theme is spoiled.

 

The characters and plot are the biggest buzzkill overall here. For all the hype and good reviews, Cooper and Wan give us all the same story/plot beats a thousand other films before it have given us. You’ll see elements of “Child’s Play 2”, the “Child’s Play” remake/reboot, and even “RoboCop”. There’s no originality or surprise, it’s generic and slow-moving to boot. After 35 minutes, the only thing of interest to have happened is the neighbour’s dog attacking the doll. It’s a typically sterile, derivative James Wan/Blumhouse Happy Meal. Executive Producer Allison Williams is ludicrously miscast as a tech whiz and to be honest her screen presence – at least here – is not particularly pleasant or appropriate for the character. Also, none of the characters outside of the doll here are worth a damn. They’re all stock and boring.

 

So is there anything I liked here? Well yes, actually there is. I may not have found the depiction of A.I. technology believable, but I gotta say the title doll is pretty fun, with voice actress Jenna Davis clearly having the time of her life in the role. I also like the visual design of M3GAN, it looks better than the Chucky doll in the “Child’s Play” remake/reboot that’s for damn sure. It’s also clearly based on The Olsen Twins, and no one will tell me otherwise. It’s clever in an otherwise intellectually and creatively starved film.

 

The same technology run amok film you’ve seen a billion times over several decades, this time with an A.I. assisted doll. The doll is amusing, the film tedious and bland. What am I missing here?

 

Rating: C-

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