Review of M3GAN, directed by Gerard Johnstone

I remember the very first time I landed a M3GAN trailer while sitting in a movie theater. I’m pretty sure the movie I had come to see was Triangle of Sadness because I’d been wanting to see that movie badly, and this was the perfect trailer to have before it.

The audience was going wild at the M3GAN trailer because the same people who are coming to see a movie like Triangle of Sadness are going to be the ones who love a movie like this.

They went wild for the trailer and the guy in front of me was laughing so hard he was crying. Anyways, like so many other things in my life, I ended up procrastinating on watching this. I kept booking a ticket to see it in theaters and then cancelling it.

So when I was wandering my library many moons later, in the summer of 2023, I saw they had gotten in the copies of M3GAN in the DVD section. It had the unrated version which I knew I wasn’t going to watch, but I still picked up the DVD and procrastinated on watching that, too. I did end up watching it, and I definitely had some thoughts.

Glad I multitasked a bit while watching it on the television, because even when my attention was elsewhere for a minute, I could easily follow the plot.

Onwards with the review!

After the death of her parents, Cady is given a special doll that evolves to have an affinity for murder.

Cady is technically the protagonist of this movie, and she’s an eight-year-old who has gone through a major tragedy. Her parents just died, leaving her an orphan with some trauma to carry with her for the rest of her life. Thankfully, she has an aunt who lives in Seattle, Gemma, that’s willing to take her in.

Gemma is single and doesn’t have any kids herself, and is very much the definition of a career girlie. She works in the robots department of a toy company in the city, and she’s got a new project while she brings in her niece to her home. Her boss wants to shut it down, but Gemma believes in the work she is doing.

Basically, she’s creating a prototype called M3GAN. The doll is intended to walk and talk like a human, but she’s still a robot that can take care of the child she is paired to. Although the first test is unsuccessful and the boss doesn’t want her working on it, Gemma decides to continue specifically after seeing Cady play with a robot she has in her house, Bruce. When M3GAN is finished, Gemma pairs the robot with Cady.

The two then begin a relationship that isn’t an owner and its toy, but instead kind of like sisters, or even and a mother and a daughter. All goes well at first, but then when the neighbor’s vicious doll attacks M3GAN and Cady, it awakens a protective instinct in the robot.

She murders the dog in the middle of the night, and when the neighbor, who’s also kind of rude, goes out looking for the dog one night, M3GAN sprays her with pesticides brutally until she dies on the floor of a shed. But before that even happens, Cady is enrolled in a camp of sorts and paired with a mean boy named Brandon.

M3GAN is left behind on the toys table, but when Brandon starts to antagonize Cady in the woods, M3GAN appears on the horizon. He calls her a stupid toy, and tries to throw her on the ground, but that pisses off the robot.

She snaps and ends up literally pulling off his ear, then throws him in front of a moving car, killing him. The cops are now investigating Gemma at this point because her, Cady, and M3GAN are connected to all of these crimes.

Gemma realizes M3GAN is going off the rocks when she starts to power her down and realizes M3GAN has a brain of her own at this point, defying the commands given to her.

With the psychiatrist’s help, she begins to realize that Cady is overcompensating her losses with the robot, growing attached to the robot to the point where it’s become unhealthy for her. Gemma makes the executive decision to power down the robot before she can cause even more damage.

In the final climax of the movie, they try to shut down M3GAN in the labs, she overpowers Gemma’s coworkers and almost hangs one of them to death, and she busts out of her makeshift prison. Going down the halls of the company, which is preparing to launch her to the world as the perfect kid’s toy, she murders the owner of the company (Gemma’s boss) and ends up murdering his assistant in the elevator.

And when the doors open and the audience sees the body, so begins the screaming. She steals a car and drives to Gemma’s house, where the final showdown begins. Cady and Gemma are able to stop M3GAN after a brief battle, but, as the final cut shows it, it looks like it’s not the end for this deadly robot.

Overall Thoughts

As a movie, M3GAN is just lackluster. The plot is simple and easy to predict, and the surprises aren’t actually surprises. This is a movie one should probably end up watching in theaters or with a large group of people, as there are some scenes that are out there in a way that’s hilarious.

It’s supposed to be a horror comedy, and I’m sure the unrated version kicks it out a notch, but the theatrical version is so tame. I wanted to see more from it. Maybe I’ll watch the unrated version one day, but that day isn’t probably coming anytime soon considering my to watch list is massive. The acting was decent throughout, but I simply wasn’t entertained. While it’s not my cup of tea, I’m sure others enjoyed it.

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