It’s that time of the year again when movies go to die, welcome to the month of January.
Now that Oscar bait season is over, it’s time for movie studios to throw away the films that they didn’t have enough faith to put a massive marketing budget behind. January has historically been a graveyard for major studios looking to pass off low-budget films in hopes of returning a profit.
The idea of a killer robot that comes to life to attack human beings isn’t exactly a fresh one. We’ve seen many dolls turn Killer movies over the last few decades such as Annabelle and Chucky.
Universal Pictures with the backing of Jason Blum decided to combine the idea of a creepy doll with AI technology. M3GAN Is a film that Blumhouse pictures have used guerrilla marketing to promote across the country over the last couple of weeks and is actually building up a decent buzz leading up to its theatrical run.
With nothing out in theaters except for Avatar: The Way of Water for at least the next month there’s a chance that M3GAN can steal some box office returns On the back of positive word of mouth. However, M3GAN is another story of a good idea but poor execution.
M3GAN is a film about a roboticist for a toy company named Gemma (Allison Williams). Gemma cares for her niece Cady after her parents were killed in a car crash. After her boss gets increasingly frustrated by the quality of her work, Gemma uses artificial intelligence to develop M3GAN (short for Model 3 Generative Android), a lifelike doll programmed to be a child’s greatest companion and a parent’s greatest ally.
Gemma uses M3GAN to be a friend for Cady and when the doll becomes self-aware and overprotective of Cady, she begins to kill and harm anyone that gets in her way of “protecting” Cady.
M3GAN is a film that finds a way to blend entertaining and ridiculous in a good way. The film is a mixed bag of goods from top to bottom. One of the biggest knocks on the film is the fact that it’s a slow burn. M3GAN slogs through a slow-paced 1st and 2nd act to get to the point of the film the audiences paid to see. The carnage doesn’t really begin until the last 20 minutes which is disappointing due to the inability to build better tension.
The effects are very solid for a film with a 12 million dollar budget which makes it a bit more of a letdown considering the film has to operate within the confines of a PG-13 movie. The greater message of the movie is stepping up to the plate and taking a parental role of a young child who needs a family more than ever.
Somehow, the filmmakers have perverted the message of their own film to make M3GAN an LGBTQ icon. M3GAN’s screenwriter Akela Cooper explained that because the film is about a girl having a found family, where this little girl has lost her family, that resonates with the LGBTQ.
I don’t have to explain the disturbing nature of a group of adults propping up an A.I. child as the leader of their rainbow resistance but the idea that M3GAN is an LGBTQ icon due to a little girl coming from a broken family portrays a reality about the LGBTQ that they may not want people to come to.
M3GAN is a decent film in many aspects but doesn’t reach a level higher than mediocre.
2/5
Don’t forget to Subscribe for Updates. Also, Follow Us at Society-Reviews, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Odysee, Rumble, and Twitch