M3GAN (Gerard Johnstone, 2022)

[cantinflas]

M3GAN

[Mr Sausage]

M3GAN

This is just the Child's Play remake. Doll over-interprets its directives to care for its playmate and becomes violent before turning on the child that inevitably rejects it.

[flyonthewall2983]

More then a whiff of Upgrade too, which is also a Blumhouse production, and from Leigh Whanell.

[Computer Raheem]

M3GAN

I wasn't expecting this to look good when it was first announced (the plot sounds like Child's Play sans all the elements that make those movies fun to begin with), but this looks abysmally stupid. Hopefully it's the fun kind of stupid - the presence of James Wan in the credits has me hoping for the former.

I'm putting money down that the "doll" dancing is going to become meme fodder

[black&huge]

M3GAN

I wasn't expecting this to look good when it was first announced (the plot sounds like Child's Play sans all the elements that make those movies fun to begin with), but this looks abysmally stupid. Hopefully it's the fun kind of stupid - the presence of James Wan in the credits has me hoping for the former.

I'm putting money down that the "doll" dancing is going to become meme fodder

I feel the opposite it looks like the greatest bit of fun in a long while

[colinr0380]

M3GAN

I wasn't expecting this to look good when it was first announced (the plot sounds like Child's Play sans all the elements that make those movies fun to begin with), but this looks abysmally stupid. Hopefully it's the fun kind of stupid - the presence of James Wan in the credits has me hoping for the former.

I'm putting money down that the "doll" dancing is going to become meme fodder

I feel the opposite it looks like the greatest bit of fun in a long while

Maybe its a response to the "Cuties" controversy, mashing it up with Ex Machina and the big eyes from Battle Angel Alita? This all reminds me that I still have not yet sat down with Malignant to decide for myself where I might fall on whether that film was blackly comically subversive or just a bit silly.

[DarkImbecile]

Decided to make M3GAN my first 2023 film in theaters after seeing it receive a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than TÁR and reading critic after critic describe it as exactly the kind of fun schlock one enjoys in January amidst catching up with all the awards season favorites. I'm going to assume those critics were so addled from watching screeners and compiling year-end lists that literally anything that didn't actually require qualitative evaluation or placement on an annual top ten list was going to get an appreciative pass, because Gerard Johnstone's sophomore effort isn't worthy of even that brand of lenient generosity.

Too slick to work as camp, too tame to have any shock value, and too facile for the satirical commentary to have any real bite, M3GAN only has one scene that really takes full advantage of its concept — the autonomous doll giving a spoiled, sociopathic kid an earful for abusing her owner — and is otherwise too shoddily constructed to leave any kind of impression. Allison Williams isn't nearly as fun here as in Get Out, Ronny Chieng is incongruously cartoonish, and most of the supporting characters are complete blanks.

Apparently before the advertising campaign took off with the TikTok crowd, this was supposed to be gorier, grimmer, and less conventionally resolved in the vein of Child's Play and the other '80s shockers that inspired it. I'm sure the executives who reshot and edited it into a PG-13 package are happy with the money, but I can imagine an unrated director's cut that at least reaches the threshold of the fun schlock I was promised.

[Finch]

I remember Walter Chaw not being impressed with Chieng's character either. I enjoyed this a bit more than you did, DI, but if the original unrated film is simply and only more gore (and possibly more CGI gore at that), then that would be disappointing. But as you suggested, they changed and omitted a few things to get the lower rating; the scriptwriter said she'd originally turned in a much more violent draft, yet I'm curious (and hoping) whether it's also a more adventurous film in its original form. I do like three Blumhouse films a great deal: Upgrade, Happy Death Day and The Invisible Man. Of those, I feel Upgrade is genuinely great.

[DarkImbecile]

Agreed, and I would put Invisible Man pretty close to it

[Ned Merrill Streep]

I had fun with this, but unfortunately this is falling into that steadily-growing category of films that want to be future camp classics so badly - I hate it when movies are so desperate to go viral, never realizing that 99% of cult films get that status through intended means. I also thought every fun moment in the film was already in the trailers (like I am almost certain that dance scene would have been better had it been kept in the film as a surprise, rather than being replicated in every second TikTok and YouTube clip I saw)

[Finch]

I forgot to include Freaky in the upper tier of Blumhouse flix!

[swo17]

Notably, there are only two directors behind your four picks

[knives]

I’m not sure how many of these are Blumhouse, but I think the following Blum produced films are also great: Get out, BlackKklansman, all three M Night flicks, and The Lords of Salem. Honestly I feel given his diversity (I don’t like it but he also produced Whiplash) and the depth his most talented filmmakers get from genre he’s something of a modern insider Corman.

[beamish14]

I’m not sure how many of these are Blumhouse, but I think the following Blum produced films are also great: Get out, BlackKklansman, all three M Night flicks, and The Lords of Salem. Honestly I feel given his diversity (I don’t like it but he also produced Whiplash) and the depth his most talented filmmakers get from genre he’s something of a modern insider Corman.

He’s taking some tentative steps towards awards bait material. I know the company has been trying to get together an adaptation of John Williams’ novel Stoner, which had an amazing resurgence a number of years back.

[therewillbeblus]

Case Affleck was attached to star in that when metoo took off, and that’s the last I heard of the project. Good book though

[Toland's Mitchell]

The theatrical and unrated versions are now streaming on Peacock. Having chosen the unrated version last night, I can confirm there is a fair amount of gore and some f-bombs that were likely edited out of the PG-13 version DI watched. However, according to multiple online sources, there is no difference otherwise. It's safe to assume these changes make M3GAN scarier and angrier, and Ronny Chieng more of an asshole,

Spoiler

which makes his unrated grisly demise more satisfying. In that same scene, why there was randomly a machete in a hallway of this toy company's headquarters? Oh whatever, it was already the both silliest and most violent scene of the film anyway.

Personally I found M3GAN enjoyably average. It isn't anything ground-breaking in the AI-turning-homocidal formula, but it's a formula that works, and here it doesn't demand many layers from its group of characters (although unfortunately the most fully constructed character, Gemma, is helmed by a so-so performance). Even though that certainly would have helped, the film nevertheless succeeded in what it was aiming for...developing its titular star from gentle programmed beginnings to self-learning intelligent serial killer, with some thrills, chills, and kills along the way. M3GAN is more frightening than past murderous dolls on the screen, because it's harder to classify her as such. In addition to her advanced AI, she also has speed and strength that easily eclipses the humans here, therefore making the suspense feel more genuine. Lastly, the film may have something to say about AI robots becoming family members in future generations, and potentially substituting for parents, teachers, and therapists in childhood development. It's an intriguing thought, one that After Yang (which I recommend) explored with nuance earlier in 2022. M3GAN doesn't feel the need to explore those possibilities with much depth, but it makes its point. It's what you expect it to be, straightforward and flawed, but a fun way to kick back and take a break from awards season flair.

[DarkImbecile]

Spoiler

In that same scene, why there was randomly a machete in a hallway of this toy company's headquarters?

Spoiler

I think she broke the blade off a paper slicer

[Toland's Mitchell]

Ha, yes that explains it. Working on award predictions. It'll be up shortly.