M3GAN (2022 film)

Category: sci-fi horror with touches of comedy

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I get that the writers of M3GAN were trying to make a movie about the dangers of letting technology take over our lives, and to that end, I don't think they did a bad job. However, considering that most horror films are based on wildly implausible scenarios - and sometimes it is the implausibility itself that is half the fun - but there are also times when implausibility takes away from the proceedings. And in this instance, from the perspective of someone like myself who works in IT and deals with the daily interface of technology and humanity on a daily basis, the implausibility on display here became a massive detraction.

I get that this is a movie and that artistic license is applied, but I simply freaked at the fact that barely anything is given more than a one-time run-test before live operation, that source code is unverified, that a team of three is somehow able to get a whole robotics project up and going clandestinely, that there is a massive lack of information security regarding data exfiltration…in fact, probably the only realistic things about M3GAN are the crunch culture, and Ronny Chieng's over-the-top performance as a manager!

The plot of M3GAN is as such - a young girl's parents die in a car crash, so her unprepared aunty is tasked with raising the girl, but thank the plot gods - this aunty happens to be a robotics engineer whose team is working on a life-size companion doll….no, not THAT kind of life-size companion doll, you sick freaks!

In order to make up for a mistake on a previous project, the aforementioned team of three make another mistake and throw Ronny Chieng's character the bone of Model 3 Generative Android - M3GAN for short - and because of the impressive initial results and lack of spine, they give themselves less than a week before public launch. However in that time, the protect directive morphs into protect-at-all-costs, with fatal consequences for anyone (or any mammal) unlucky enough to get in the way.

This all culminates in a massive robot fight and an ambiguous ending which screams sequel-bait!

I am going to give this film 3.25/5, but I would have given it higher had the plot been THIS instead:

Orphaned girl gets put with aunty who is a robotics engineer - but the aunty uses the life-size doll to protect not only the girl, but also herself as she has been exfiltrating company secrets (insert reason here). I think that would have been a much better story - not the asinine reworking of iRobot made for the TikTok generation that we got instead…

Final rating: 3.25/5 - I love the effects, and you won't believe that the girl playing M3GAN does her own stunts (and facial expressions). The comic touches were appreciated as well.