Finally watched M3GAN this morning.
It's kind of a momentarily enjoyable watch-once horror film, from my perspective. I enjoyed Barbarian and Malignant more and am far more apt to rewatch those. Still this film has its moments, although it feels like it was reined in as far as censoring goes.
The plotting is nothing special, it's pretty clear what all the beats are going to be. The script is also kind of terrible for much of the film -- some of the dialogue and some of the plotting. (For example, what company would allow such an important and expensive prototype to be taken off the facilities and not be locked down 24/7? And especially being taken out in public, to be seen by average people? It's just ludicrous and stupid in that regard.) And honestly, the dialogue at times is really stripped back if not laughable, and the actor playing the CEO is just awful.
Meanwhile both Allison Williams (Gemma) and Violet McGraw (Cady) both deserved better lines, they were the top cast in the film and actually have chops (especially Violet), so they were undersold in this film. Also, the body/face double and the voice (two separate people) for M3GAN also did a great job. For much of the film it should have been very clear about a kid dealing with grief for two months, yet it was never addressed -- until finally it was, in a somewhat poignant moment unsupported by the writing elsewhere in the film and wrapping up too neatly. The unexpected turn in the first demo was kind of hysterically funny + also very unexpectedly moving, along with another few M3GAN + Cady that were surprisingly emotional. So at times the film almost becomes a real film, but like the M3GAN android it's essentially just at core a knock-off / simulacra.
The thing, at times M3GAN can be fun. It reminds me of Orphan a bit, in that something beneficial and/or expected to support family love ends up being a destructive force, both wrapped in the form of a young girl. Orphan was a bit emotionally deeper, but there are moments of craziness that will just bring laughs. I had to alternate with, "Gee, you really don't want to be doing that" with laughter at how bad things were heading and guessing pretty accurately what was coming.
I had seen all this buzz about the "dance sequence" but in the film it's barely 10 seconds if that. I'm a little confused as to why it was so popular. I feel like the film just hit the zeitgeist for some reason that I don't quite fathom, leading to its momentary popularity. But in the big scale, I'm not sure it deserved all the attention it got; I've seen better horror flicks that barely made a splash.
(For a semi-recent one that did get some attention, I would mention Elizabeth Moss' "The Invisible Man" from 2020 -- that is a case of a similar horror film with a far more solid script, scares, and development, that resonates even after viewing has ended. M3GAN has a decent production budget and looks nice, but TIM was a better film.)
