M3GAN

When I first saw the trailer for M3GAN, I thought it looked awful. The effects looked dodgy, the acting was unenthusiastic, and the jokes, if you can even call them that, were downright cringeworthy. However, the reviews for it have been extremely positive, so much so that a sequel has already been greenlit. So, a friend and I went to the movies to see M3GAN this past weekend with fairly high expectations. Nonetheless, as we walked out of the theater, not only were our expectations left unmet, all of the worries I had about the film when I initially saw the trailer was confirmed.

For those of you who have somehow avoided the viral marketing campaign for this film, M3GAN follows the story of a roboticist at a toy company who builds an artificially intelligent doll to help her recently orphaned niece cope with the loss of her parents. The eponymous doll eventually develops violent tendencies, which she views as necessary actions in order to keep her human companion safe. As you could imagine, the outlandish plot paves the way for a lot of humor or at least attempts at humor. For my theater especially, there wasn’t much more than a few chuckles here and there from the audience.

M3GAN is a horror comedy, so you’d hope that if the comedic aspects were subpar, then maybe the horror elements would make up for it in some capacity. Unfortunately, that is not the case for this film. The scares and violence are very tame, likely due in large part to the studio wanting to keep a PG-13 rating, which allows the film to reach a greater audience than it would have with an R rating.
It truly puzzles me what people are seeing about this film that I am not, and my opinion on it only worsens the more I think about it. As far as horror movies go, I think M3GAN is one robot that’s best left deactivated.