Film Review M3GAN (2022)

With Avatar: The Way of Water becoming a global sensation and grossing over $1.7billion at the time of writing, the debate still rages over the future of theatrical cinema (“I’m tired of sitting on my a**!” proclaimed James Cameron at the Golden Globes) and whether the models that have held Hollywood together for decades are in the midst of big changes. But despite many saying thenold ways are dying, many have utilised the Field of Dreams allegory to answer back “If you make them right, they will come.” The pandemic has had a profound effect on adult-leaning films – see Tár, The Fabelmans, Babylon and Empire of Light as recent examples failing to find an audience in the US – but make something people want and you’ll be rewarded and, right now, good scares and good thrills are hot currency.

Blumhouse, the company founded by Jason Blum to house many scary nights at the movies, has ridden the wave of renewed popularity through the genres it resides and, post-pandemic, was able to help usher audiences back to the cinemas with last year’s excellent The Black Phone, as well as its countless other endeavours as it has become stronger and stronger. Blum and co know – mostly – what audiences get a kick out of and it’s no surprise that 2023’s biggest non-blue-people film thus far is M3gan, their latest offering that has already packed-out cinemas.

A riff on Child’s Play, The Terminator, heck even Ultron from the MCU, and many others, Gerald Johnstone’s film is at turns hilarious, scary, thrilling and, most importantly, stupendously entertaining. Doesn’t everyone want a demonic, self-aware doll friend that dances and serenades us with song after a brutal killing?! Said doll is the brainchild of computer engineer/roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) working at a revolutionary toy company, who decides to activate her brainchild to help her niece, Candy (Violet McGraw), after her parents are killed in a car crash. Soon, however, Megan’s technological advancements are much bigger than Gemma could have imagined.

Still, there’s more going on that just a possessed toy going on a killing spree through a suburban neighbourhood at an alarming rate to protect her “paired” friend, as Akeela Cooper‘s biting screenplay (she of Malignant fame, an equally absurd yet ridiculously fun horror, combining with James Wan for the story once more) has more to say about loss, grief and childhood anxieties, as well as the trials of modern parenthood with the ever-looming monster of the Internet and social media always surrounding them. Indeed, there’s much dissecting corporate America, the media and greed above need, too, that slices through the film just as M3gan does, that while not exactly cutting as deep as it may have hoped, still leaves a scar. It, too, has a laugh or two along the way, with Johnstone‘s slick, energetic direction leaning into the more absurdist moments of the film with vigour and style, elevating it from disposable frightener/thriller into a hugely entertaining romp that has more under the interface than meets the eye. Sequel is inevitable.