Review: "M3GAN"

• February 9, 2023
• Fredrik Lagnetoft

Is M3GAN Unrated worth seeing in the cinema? We took the bullet.

It's time for another horror movie from Malignant screenwriter Akela Cooper — now we're getting to see an AI-powered doll go berserk in M3GAN Unrated.

Synopsis

While going on a skiing holiday, Cady (McGraw) loses both her parents in a car accident. She is placed with her aunt Gemma (Williams), who works as a sort of advanced toy maker — and who thinks it might be a good idea to provide Cady with grief support through one of their robots, in the form of a doll that learns using artificial intelligence; M3GAN.

The M3GAN doll is constantly watching over Cady, with her best interests in mind...

Soon enough it turns out that the doll's main mission — that of keeping Cady happy and protected — is pretty much without limits. Perhaps the robot should have been given stricter rules from the start.

Actors

The actors don't usually take center stage in horror films, but rather the spectacle itself. Here, however, the spectacle is missing and it becomes much more obvious that the actors aren't very good. Allison Williams fits reasonably well as Aunt Gemma, but Violet McGraw as grieving Cady is hard to root for — it's just not good enough.

The actors in M3GAN leave a lot to be desired, unfortunately.

Worst of all, though, are those who play the robot, M3GAN. There's some really bad execution going on here from a directorial standpoint; whether it's real kids with their faces replaced by CGI or a complete CGI character (it varies), it never fully works. And it's a shame, cause this film has some potential.

Verdict

Although the film has potential at times — albeit mostly as a drama — it completely fails in regards to being scary; this feels more like a comedy instead of a horror film, while not being hysterical enough to be a true horror comedy.

The film doesn't make it, either as a horror film, comedy, or drama.

Ultimately, it lands somewhere in between — and that's a problem because it doesn't reach home as any of those things; neither as a drama, comedy, or horror film. Sure, if you take your friends and go to the movies I think you might find M3GAN Unrated good for a laugh and a scream, but other than that, the film isn't very appealing.

M3GAN Unrated had its wide American theatrical release on January 6, 2023.

Score

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• Categories: Movie Reviews