M3GAN is chaotic, dumb — and nearly perfect. It's an off-the-wall, irreverent, and absolutely on-target sci-fi slasher-satire about a killer-kid robot ... [that] accomplishes nearly everything it attempts, and everything the buzz promised.
This is a very well made and entertaining horror film, maybe the best I've seen since 'The Invisible Man' (2020). Content collapsed. M3GAN is chaotic, dumb — and nearly perfect.
Is “M3GAN” scary? Honestly, not really. “M3GAN” is, first and foremost, a horror comedy, with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. Filmmaker Gerard Johnstone knows what he's doing; his first feature was the terrific “Housebound,” which also liberally mixed thrills and laughs.
M3GAN is not just comedy and horror in one, led by an AI doll that provides extreme loyalty and care for her assigned companion, but it also tackles darker and more serious issues, from the different stages of grief to the shadiness of capitalism, and that alone is worth the praise the movie is getting.
Review: Killer-doll horror-comedy 'M3GAN' is delightfully deranged. “This 'doll' is just better than Chucky 100%,” another fan wrote. Like “Child's Play,” “M3GAN” follows a lifelike doll that is designed to be a child's best friend.
This is a very well made and entertaining horror film, maybe the best I've seen since 'The Invisible Man' (2020). M3GAN is chaotic, dumb — and nearly perfect. It's an off-the-wall, irreverent, and absolutely on-target sci-fi slasher-satire about a killer-kid robot ...
M3GAN was originally programmed to protect her niece Cady after the deaths of her parents, but eventually it begins to go rogue to the point of killing people - thereby setting the events of the film into motion. She is the cousin figure and former friend-turned-arch-nemesis of both her creator Gemma and Cady.
The MPAA rating has been assigned for “violent content and terror, some strong language and a suggestive reference.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes suggestive dancing by an AI doll, three deaths by car accidents, a dog attack, a few encounters with an aggressive dog, the implied killing of a dog, several ...
It's now been revealed that the film, which is PG-13 in the US , was originally designed to be more graphic, but had some gory content erased in an attempt to lure in a younger audience – a tactic that has paid off.
The website's critical consensus reads: "Unapologetically silly and all the more entertaining for it, M3GAN is the rare horror-comedy that delivers chuckles as effortlessly as chills". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100 based on 54 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Amie Donald may have helped bring M3GAN to life, but she didn't voice the doll — Jenna Davis did. In terms of Amie's role, she was tasked with moving M3GAN's body, and was able to do this by wearing an animatronics mask. Therefore, M3GAN's character was made possible with CGI, a child actor, and a little puppeteering.
Cady is only nine years old during the events of M3GAN, though her actress Violet McGraw was around 10 years old when filming the movie. Also revealing that she's in fourth grade, Cady is extremely young when she loses her parents and moves to Seattle to live with her aunt Gemma.
As a result, Cady remote controls Bruce, a powerful, non-sentient robot that Gemma built in college, to turn the tide of her and her aunt's fight with M3GAN. After several moments of intense back-and-forth, Gemma finally manages to put M3GAN's reign of terror to an end by driving a screwdriver through her exposed head.
It's well made, albeit violent, and focuses on human needs as well as artificial ones. Characters are killed, and there are discussions about death, loss, and grief. Someone's ear is ripped off, and characters are stabbed, strangled, shot with a nail gun, sprayed with a chemical sprayer, bitten by a dog, etc.
The parts that could be spooky are played more for laughs than they are for chills, so especially if you're seeing it with an audience, you're more likely to be chuckling along than getting a case of the shivers.
Last year, M3GAN delivered the ultimate child horror villain. M3GAN looks like an innocent child and she was designed to provide children with a comfortable feeling of safety and companionship, but she quickly turns out to be a mass murderer. A 2024 horror gem has given audiences another great child horror villain.
The R-rating doesn't ban children under 17 from a movie, it restricts them to watching it with a parent or guardian (and includes a recommendation that parents and guardians learn more before allowing their child to see the movie).
There's a distinguishable line between camp and cringe, and as the doll did a few TikTok dance moves in the hallway, or started to sing out of nowhere, it fell more towards the cringe side. The only positive emotion I felt towards “M3GAN” was relief when the credits finally started rolling.
The film's success comes on the heels of a bizarre, highly viral marketing campaign, including the doll herself maintaining an active social media presence and life-size M3GAN dolls making appearances in real life and on late-night talk shows.
While there are jump scares and it won't give you the glee of seeing a doll covered in the fluids of its victims like a Child's Play movie, Megan does a good job with the kills that are there and I never felt like the movie's rating limited my enjoyment.
