M3GAN

(Note: unlike my other reviews, this one is short and sweet, as there’s literally not much to write home about with this film.)

M3GAN works so much better as a trailer than a full-fledged feature film. The trailer is witty, irreverent, and even a little creepy. In other words, all the things the movie wishes it were.  The concept, despite being unoriginal, is solid enough: a Child’s Play for Zoomers. But unlike Bodies Bodies Bodies, another recent high-profile horror comedy aimed at the TikTok generation, M3GAN completely squanders its potential with anemic writing, flimsy plotting, paper-thin characterizations (I get it, it’s a B-movie, but don’t insult the audience’s intelligence) and an almost complete lack of either humor or scares.

The opening scene is promising, with a faux commercial for a brand of children’s toys called Perpetual Petz, which pull off the tricky balance of being cute, creepy, and genuinely funny all at once. The rest of the movie does not live up to this promise.  The script, by Akela Cooper, plays it frustratingly safe, prioritizing mass appeal over innovation.  Aside from a few throwaway lines scattered throughout, and literally anything Ronny Chieng says (who is very much playing himself), there’s a noticeable lack of laughs here. Same goes for the horror. All of the mayhem is telegraphed a mile away, and the kills are disappointingly tame—a likely consequence of the film’s being edited down from an R rating.  To make matters worse, Gerard Johnstone’s direction is thuddingly pedestrian and workmanlike.

The one bright spot is the VFX, as the combination of animatronics and digital effects is truly striking.  M3GAN has a lot of screentime, and the twitches of her rubberized face and the unnatural movement of her limbs are consistently unnerving, in a good way.  But that by itself isn’t enough to save this movie.  In the end, it’s neither as scary nor as funny as the franchise that inspired it, and after a year filled with innovative, original horror (The Black Phone, Nope, Barbarian, etc.), it’s hard to recommend a movie that’s so content to wallow in its own mediocrity.