Movie Reaction: M3gan

Formula: Child's Play / Snakes on a Plane

 

This movie should be bad. That's the simple truth. If you describe every part of this movie to me out of context, I'm going to assume it's a bad movie. The trailer went viral, not because it was scary. It took off because M3gan is silly. Her look. Her dancing. It's very hard to tell from the trailer how much everyone is in on the joke. I've seen highly-memed movies fail. Plenty of them. People get what they need for a round of jokes then sense the movie isn't as good as the memes and skip it. So, I wasn't even sure how much of the excitement for the movie was sincere. It reminded me a lot of Snakes on a Plane years ago. That movie was made on its title and Samuel L. Jackson's giddy press for it. That excitement got it as far as a big opening night and dramatic fall off before falling into obscurity, except for that evocative title, of course.

 

It's a delicate balance to get M3gan right. It needs to be a real horror movie but with enough knowing nods to let the audience know that it's in on the joke too. However, they have to make the movie before they know what the audience reaction to even the trailer will be. Which means it's a minor miracle that M3gan hits as well as it does.

 

M3gan is about a little girl, Cady (Violet McGraw), who loses her parents in a car wreck. Her aunt, Gemma (Allison Williams), takes her in and just happens to also be a toy designer working on advanced A.I. technology. Unsure how to relate to her niece, Gemma designs a doll to be her friend and coping device. That's M3gan. Of course, this is a horror movie, so M3gan's A.I. is corrupt and turns her into an autonomous killing machine.

 

There's nothing revolutionary in the pace or design of the story. It delivers the beats the audience expects. It just does it with a little flair. In particular, the M3gan design is just great. She's kind of fabulous; not designed to look like a killer doll. And, as I mentioned, the film gives just enough winks to the audience to be a lot of fun. Sometimes it's giving M3gan a killer pair of sunglasses. Sometimes it's sitting her in a pile of stuffed animals. Sometimes it's having her do a little dance for absolutely no reason other than it looks cool. This movie doesn't just get that it's supposed to be fun. It gets the exact kind of fun it needs to be.

 

It can be a bummer when a legitimately terrifying horror movie gets the sequel treatment. Saw went from nefarious to silly by the end. The first Friday the 13th was really effective the first time around, then it was done so many times that Jason took Manhattan. M3gan is nice because there's nothing to ruin with the unneeded sequel that's sure to come. M3gan has a personality and look that's already silly. This movie is never that serious to begin with. Yet it does leave the humor to the editing choices and meta-context of the movie. It doesn't rely on self-aware characters or desperate appeals to the audience. The movie plays it straight so you don't have to.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend