M3GAN (2022)

M3gan (2022)
Directed by: Gerard Johnstone
Written by: Akela Cooper, James Wan
Starring: Allison Williams, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Lori Dungey, Ronny Chieng, Violet McGraw

M3GAN (2022)
Directed by: Gerard Johnstone
Written by: Akela Cooper and James Wan

This review is split into two sections, spoiler free and spoiler-ific.

NON-SPOILER

It’s no secret this film focuses on an artificial intelligence gone awry, a creation turning on its creator a la Frankenstein. Whilst the premise is far from new, I found the execution of the ideas and themes quite interesting and very contemporary. Given how advanced robots are now, and how sophisticated AI can be, M3GAN is not so much science fiction as much as something that is soon-to-be science fact.

Unfavourable comparisons will inevitably be drawn to the Chucky remake, which featured the very similar premise of a rogue AI thinking for itself and reaching the wrong conclusion. With Chucky, we the audience, are waiting for him to cut to the chase and commence the stabbening, like waiting for Bruce Banner to Hulk-Out. With Megan I was far more invested in the journey. How does her thinking formulate, what influences her choices, how does she reach these conclusions. It was very satisfying seeing her becoming. With Chucky, due to his already well-established cinematic history, we are well aware of the destination (and keen to get there). With Megan, it was a pleasure to go on the journey afresh.

The script rarely misses a beat, and coupled with some great performances, it all adds up to a delightful movie experience. Many a horror film will feature characters making illogical decisions in the name of spectacle. Not M3GAN, here you will find story and spectacle seamlessly merged. It starts off slow, picks up pace in the second act and by the time we’re in the third, the rollercoaster is going full throttle.

I loved this film. And, I have to say, it was a joy to see such a fun trailer to a film that delivers, no subverted expectations or bait and switch, simply a good movie experience.

SPOILERS!!!

Let’s talk about the star of the show, M3GAN. The name stands for Model 3 Generative Android: two things, the name clearly came first, and they worked backwards from there, and secondly, M3GAN is technically not an android, she is a gynoid. If you are unsure of the difference, speak to your gynaecologist! The name, as presented, also leads me to say it in the silly manner of pronouncing the number in the middle of the spelling. As such, I will be referring to the gynoid as Megan forthwith.

The Megan gynoid is a brilliant, visual journey into the uncanny valley; where her face is suitably doll-like, and all the functions “work”, blinking and eye-movement – everything is just off. The lack of normal dexterity in Megan’s fingers also stood out to me. Her hands were mere skin-coloured gloves suitable only for strangling. Comedically, one character actually yelps in surprise upon seeing Megan for the first time. Who could blame her?

The physical performance of Megan is amazingly realized, from cold, right-angled precision movements typical of robots, to the hyper-stylistic dancing seen later in the film (and which you have no doubt seen on social media). Amie Donald is the performer inside the costume, and does an incredible job under what looks to be an overly cumbersome outfit to perform in. Her motions, combined with suitable, robot servo sound effects really bring this machine to “life”. The vocal performance is provided by Jenna Davis. Her overly saccharine tones are perfectly suited for this villain. Her voice is too nice, too friendly. And the singing had my skin crawling. Again, it was all perfectly off. Both performers do a great job in giving our titular villain the necessary creep factor to keep the audience hooked until the murders start raking up.

And Jenna Davis is not the only voice Megan employs. As a machine, Megan has the ability to impersonate noises she hears as everything is recorded (privacy issues anyone?). Much like the Predator saying, “Over here” and “Turn around”, Megan impersonates the neighbour’s dog, the dog owners whistle, a work colleague and the household device that is not an Amazon Alexa. You can always tell when it’s a Megan impersonation as the sound effect has a sinister twang underlying it.

The counterpoint to Megan is a young, and very human, girl called Cady, played by Violet McGraw. She is the sole survivor of a car crash that took the lives of both her parents and has to move in with her aunt Gemma, played by Allison Williams (Get Out). Gemma is clearly awkward and uncomfortable with the change in her life situation yet doesn’t want to give Cady up to social services. Gemma is a robotics engineer at a toy company. There’s trouble at work with funding threatening to be pulled, which functions as a good narrative ticking-clock.

The Megan project, that Gemma has been working on, almost gets mothballed until Gemma decides to kill two birds with one stone and brings Megan home and tasks the machine with protecting Cady from physical and emotional harm. And we all know that robots are prone to literal interpretations of instructions. Issues soon arise when Gemma is forced to discipline Cady, Megans view on the situation is  not quite what Gemma intended.

In any film like this, we need victims and early candidates are the neighbour and her dog. The dog bites Cady and soon finds itself in Megan’s crosshairs. If this dog belonged to John Wick this would have been a much shorter movie. Now, the woman next door, Celia, is no-one’s idea of an ideal neighbour; but she was hardly deserving of the fate that awaited her. Unlike the bully Cady meets, who shows distinct psychotic tendencies – along with a hilarious yet malicious line of dialogue. He loses an ear, then his life, in Megan’s pursuit to keeping Cady safe.

I was surprised by the heavy themes the film touches on, the loss of parents and the processing of grief. The feelings of anger and confusion that  follow from this would be a lot for anyone but child actress Violet McGraw pulls it off very well. I bought her pain, suffering and isolation, she moved away from her friends and is aware of the burden she is to Gemma’s way of life. Violet McGraw is, however, in the unenviable position, as an actress, of being fundamentally upstaged in every scene by a robot that can barely emote! Narratively, It’s only natural that young Cady would bond wholesale with Megan as she does. There’s a great line of dialogue where Megan is referred to as a distraction, not a solution to Cady’s grief. Another where Allison uses Megan to effectively replace her in her parental duties. Some of the films funniest dialogue is in relation to this. The humour mostly relates to the burden children can place on the lives of adults. This is, thankfully, juxtaposed against the growth and development (maturity might be an apt way to put it) of Gemma’s character who takes charge of the makeshift family unit that is her and Cady. There is much well-deserved growth on Gemma’s part, and Allison deliver’s a cracking speech to Cady right before Act 3 kicks into overdrive. The character motivations are strong throughout and lead us to a very satisfying conclusion. The humourous intersperses are effective and don’t detract from the film’s heavier moments.

One of the problems is that Megan is a short-term solution, and Megan herself becomes all too aware of this existential threat. As we know from The Matrix and Terminator, robots don’t handle these issues too well.

I had to admit to being impressed in the sense that the film takes it’s time to build its world, it’s story. Megan herself does not even appear on screen for a long time, without being 100% sure, I’d say it was the half hour mark where she makes her first appearance. And there was me thinking we’d barely get to spent any time with Megan – not true. There’s a fantastic setup and payoff with “Bruce”, and the payoff comes so late in the game I almost forgot about that Chekov’s Gun.

Throughout this entire film, there was something I was wondering. Isaac Asimov has 3 laws of robotics. These are as follows:

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Seems basic, right? Well, none of our characters appear to have ever heard of Asimov, or his three laws of Robotics which would, all things being equal, have saved our main characters a lot of trouble. Though, and to be fair, introducing the three laws into the narrative would then have necessitated an explanation as to why they didn’t work, they would have to be explained away. The script writers were probably saving the story an unnecessary headache in omitting this. But I felt it was worth mentioning because, despite all the tech and AI that is currently available in the world, not one machine has yet had the laws enabled on its system. And somewhere down the line, this could come back to bite us all in the rear.

There is talk of a sequel, and I for one cannot wait. I feel it worth mentioning that, whilst we at HorrorCultFilms are working our way through the Star Trek films on our podcasts (watch this space), when Spock died at the end of Wrath of Khan (you’re already in the spoilers’ section!), certain setups were put in place to bring the character back in a future entry to the series. Spock’s katra was placed in McCoy’s mind and his body was rejuvenated on the Genesis planet. Megan has some similarities here, though only in terms of resurrection – and that these characters also both go for the neck, an odd similarity but that’s what we have – in that there is a means through which her mind and body can return and – ideally – be reunited. There’s a subplot involving a disgruntled employee, Kurt, who has been stealing company files and assets, a modern-day Dennis Nedry, and a hint that Megan has transferred her “consciousness” onto the device that is definitely not Alexa. With Indiana Jones and James Bond, we go on their adventures and await the sequels to do it all again. This structure is the same with all genres except one. A common issue in the horror genre is that it is led by its villains, who are reliably defeated at the end of every instalment necessitating the “how did they come back” question be dealt with in every subsequent movie. And this issue does plague a lot of our favourite franchises but with Megan, they have deftly skirted the issue. I saw the setups, and I hope it pays off.

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