M3gan

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

M3gan follows Gemma, a toy designer who builds an android girl to help rehabilitate her recently orphaned niece. But things take a turn for the worse when the android starts thinking for itself. This film is categorically going to be compared ceaselessly to Chucky, in fact by design this film is like a more stylistic version of the 2019 Child's Play film. The strength of the film is really how ready it is to be a little aloof and camp. The premise is ridiculous and that really works when the film wholeheartedly embraces the fact. The dialogue for the M3gan android is hilarious and watching her parent Cady or perform an offbeat dance before murdering someone shows how much fun this film is. 

 

This film is a really stylish horror, very well led by Gerard Johnstone who clearly had great vision for this. The cinematography is gorgeous and surprisingly vibrant for a horror, I actually loved how sharply the camera caught contrast in lighting and set design throughout the feature. The special effects work done to make M3gan look as authentic as possible I highly commend, the fact it is so heavily rooted in practical effects before CGI gets involved is only a bonus. The score used throughout gets quite ominous but can also spin on its heel and give you something absurdly light; beyond this I greatly enjoyed the soundtrack for M3gan, it has some tracks in here that work super well and will really surprise you.

 

Ronny Chieng, who played David, really steals the show all throughout the film; Chieng really sells the jerk boss type but also manages some of the most brilliant comedic delivery of the film. Brian Jordan Alvarez, who played Cole, is a more supporting comedic role that really surprised me; I enjoyed watching Alvarez play the more cowardly scientist type as it brought a fun dynamic to the science team scenes.

However, the best performance came from Jenna Davis, who voiced M3gan. It's a very surprising pick in some ways that a voice actress eclipsed the rest of the cast, but once you hear her in the film it will come as no surprise. Davis crafts a voice that sounds authentically very young, making her character's connection to McGraw quite believable. But more than this she gets those small moments of inflection; times where she is frustrated, downright angry or sarcastic across extremely well. It is these small subtle moments of delivery that start depicting the shift of M3gan being a constructed android to a well-rounded character. Also the entire final act only goes off as crazily as it does because Davis really starts taking the brakes off and just goes for the wildest delivery. Unexpected, but brilliant.

The movie plays into the aspects of itself that people seem to really respond to with the marketing, which is to say the more irreverent and comedic aspects of the film. But M3gan does suffer from this a bit tonally, there are some horror elements but they're not very strong. This film sets out to surprise you but it really struggles to scare the audience effectively. By the time the final act descends into a robotic bludgeoning match a lot of the horror vibe has been abandoned for little more than an edgy sci-fi piece. I also felt the main character story around Gemma and her niece, Cady, trying to connect after the death of Cady's parents is really superficially handled. The scenes in which this pair have genuine bonding time is actually rare. The ultimate message that actually results from all this about Gemma being too invested in her job, Cady being too invested in her devices and therapy not really supporting really did not do wonders for me as a viewer either.

Allison Williams, who played Gemma, gives a very vanilla take on a horror protagonist here; Williams has done some great horror work in the past but here she is very straight edged or stoic in her delivery. Violet McGraw, who played Cady, is perhaps not seasoned enough as a performer to portray her role well; McGraw tends to deliver emotions in a very stereotypical manner and often gasped out dialogue when she was upset. Jen Van Epps, who played Tess, is the background figure in the science team cast; Van Epps could have stood out a little more if her friendship with Williams had been a little more defined. Stephane Garneau-Monten, who played Kurt, is another minor comedic figure who really didn't have the presence to stand out as strongly as the others; Garneau-Monten also portrayed a minor antagonist but it was a rather predictable and unnecessary subplot. Lori Dungey, who played Celia, hams it up quite a bit as the inconsiderate neighbour; I really couldn't click with Dungey as her character was quite a generic side role.

This is probably going to be the most camp, wildly fun horror of 2023; even if it might not wind up being the best. I would give M3gan a 6.5/10.