M3GAN

Chucky’s colleague, who doesn’t believe in silicon heaven, pisses all over the three laws of robotics and, in the long run, causes deprivation for her child owners— it couldn’t have ended any other way. All that was missing from the showdown in the home workshop was an industrial press and the line: "You're terminated, fucker!" The targeting of commercial success definitely splashes more than blood, and the shift to black comedy is much more effective than superficial commentary on the dangers of artificial intelligence. In the end, the scariest moment is the look on engineer Gemma’s face as she unwraps the toy for her niece, displayed on the shelf. Collectors and Rick Harrison know… (20/02/2023)

This year's first mainstream horror genre film is just your average high tech affair. Although M3gan has received good reviews overseas (Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are both overwhelmingly praiseworthy), die-hard horror fans are certainly not overflowing with enthusiasm. M3gan is a modern variation on Chucky for Gen Z, so to speak, highlighting the dangers of modern technology and how treacherous it can be. Unfortunately the film is hurt by the PG-13 rating and it's all too family friendly and safe. It rambles on for over an hour and getting to know the characters isn't much fun, in short it's more of a drama about a little girl's relationship with a doll that classically starts to turn into a killer monster. It's a shame the premise didn't live up to its potential, it aimed for big things, butthe few murders probably wouldn't have been much even with an R-rating (we might have got 2-3 small gore scenes), which, compared to the new Evil Dead  is a mockery. The atmosphere doesn't work very well and the scares aren't there either, so it plays more on a disturbing note, but I wasn't too impressed with that either. Some even claim it's a comedy, but you must have a very obscure sense of humour. The finale at least saved it from being average for me. The battle in the house is very well filmed. M3GAN is properly creepy there for the first time in the film (her moves are admittedly copied from demons in traditional exorcism genre movies, but it looks even cooler in a robotic way) and her final appearance is also decent, It’s not worth going to the cinema, it's watchable, but the movie would be more fitting on VOD. 55% (14/01/2023)

Horror for the TikTok generation. It mostly blew me away at the end because it's basically a rip-off of Aliens, where instead of a space monster there's a futuristic doll, the adult heroine learns to be a mother, and the little girl is the ultimate badass. It’s also a critique of the marketing frenzy that drives technology against humanity using emotional coercion. I had fun, but I find it ironic that it's the kind of consumerist and faddish product taking advantage of modern trends that it actually warns against (13/01/2023)

M3GAN was pretty underwhelming. It didn’t bring anything new to the table, especially if you’ve already seen Chucky, Terminator, or RoboCop. Calling it a horror movie feels like a stretch, though I’ll admit, if I stumbled upon those two girls unexpectedly, I’d probably jump. The android is actually less creepy than her human counterpart, Cady. Violet McGraw has a face with serious horror potential — maybe one day she’ll land a role that fully taps into that and turns her into the stuff of nightmares. I couldn’t really wrap my head around Gerard Johnstone’s choice to make M3GAN do those odd, “cool” moves — twice. In the end, the movie was neither scary, original, nor particularly fun... It was just kind of "meh." / Lesson learned: Terminator may be an ’84 classic, but it’s clear people still haven’t grasped its core message. (22/08/2024)

This mundane copy of the recent remake of Child’s Play is unimaginative, lacks suspense and isn’t scary. I was startled once when a dog barked at an unexpected moment. The actors are fine and there are some OK emotional moments here and there, but M3GAN is otherwise a rather silly horror B-movie on the now classic theme of spreading irrational fear of modern technologies among people who have no idea how artificial intelligence actually works. I don’t understand the enthusiastic response abroad. (12/01/2023)