Review M3gan – Review on FilmTotaal
Director: Gerard Johnstone | Screenplay: Akela Cooper| To emit: Allison Williams (Gemma), Violet McGraw (Cady), Ronny Chieng (David), Jenna Van Epps (Tess), Brian Jordan Alvarez (Cole), ea | Time to play: 102 minutes | Year: 2022
Before it was just the TV screen, but now there are also computers, tablets and phones, which has created a new word: screen time. A big problem for parents, because the bottom line is that it is not good for children. However, fathers and mothers all over the world plant their children behind a screen so they don’t have to grow up for a while. That’s true m3gan it’s all about the gist, but presented as a very entertaining comedy and not particularly scary.
After her sister and brother-in-law are killed in an accident, Gemma is given custody of her son, her niece Cady. Unfortunately, Gemma is not the mother type, but a single toy developer, and she is on the cusp of a technological breakthrough: a robot doll that can interact with children in real life. That’s helpful, because instead of raising Cady herself, she leaves it to the M3gan prototype. But yes, this android takes her job as protector too seriously and sees danger around every corner to eliminate.
Whether you’ve seen the trailer or not, you know exactly how the plot will unfold and where it will end. Does that bother? No. It’s an entertaining situation, especially since M3gan itself is an intriguing eye-catcher. She’s not really a robot, just a girl actress in a mask (which is easy enough to spot when she walks around). But her plastic face and her oversized eyes convincingly convey M3gan’s haunting thoughts.
The movie starts slowly, it takes a while before M3gan really starts to misbehave. But once that happens, Gemma isn’t sticking her head in the sand. She sees that things are going wrong and immediately takes steps to do something about it. She’s always disturbing when people in movies stupidly refuse, so that’s great. m3gan it has a main character who isn’t bothered by blinders who are just there to let a murderer get away with it a little longer.
It’s largely about what happens to children when we leave education in the hands of technology, but also a bit about how it’s been normal for some time for many parents to give in to the demands of their sons and daughters. Cady raises her voice briefly and immediately gets her way and M3gan reactivates. Or a psychopathic classmate that her mother describes as an emotional child with an exceptionally high IQ.
The fact that this comedy with mild horror elements is about something ensures that it doesn’t feel boring. But besides predictability there are more failures. M3gan is dangerous, although it’s never really clear where the danger lies. At first it seems that he uses his genius computer brain to get rid of the ‘danger’. A little later, it turns out that he has mechanical super strength and can strangle you.
Too bad, because sometimes when you see her looking and you know she’s up to something sinister, she’s at her creepiest. When she carries out her plan, no more, because you don’t know exactly what you should be afraid of. It tries to make M3gan scarier by falling into the horror cliché of unnatural movements: the doll chases someone on all fours or makes movements as if possessed by a demon, but fails.
The same goes for the ending: it’s too uninspired to offer a worthy conclusion to what was until then an entertaining story. Even with a bit of stretching, it’s still a brief climax filled with chewed up acts. There is also a moment in the last act that is reminiscent of the glow, but where there’s a stoic twin in that movie, here’s M3gan starting to do a TikTok dance. In the movie itself, that scene works even worse than it did in the trailer.
January is usually blockbuster season, but don’t be surprised if m3gan not upset about it. This familiar concept with a new twist offers something to laugh about for horror fans and is completely accessible to the easily scared. If you have no trouble guessing how the plot unfolds and ends, this popcorn movie will have you covered.