M3GAN (2023)

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Posted By: brian@brianschell.com February 28, 2023

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This looks good, and it’s entertaining. It’s a cautionary tale of AI getting out of control, science fiction but maybe not that many years away from where we are. You can see where things are going, and it gives a decent payoff that moves fast.

Synopsis

We see a commercial about a girl whose dog died. It’s an ad for robotic toys that look something like a super Furby. Cady has one of them in the car as they drive up the side of the mountain. Her mother whines about Cady’s screen time; Cady’s aunt Gemma works at the company that makes the toys. They start sliding around on the icy road and can’t see anything, so they stop where they are. Then a snow truck rams them and kills both parents. Credits roll.

At the Funki toy company, we see lots of cool things. Gemma is there testing new Funki toys. She wants to show her new design to the boss, but it’s not ready yet. A rubbery looking face arrives, and they put it on the humanoid robot she’s built. Boss David comes in, and he’s not happy– she spent way too much on this secret project. She calls her new toy, “Model 3 Generative Android,” or M3GAN. It’s clearly not ready for prime time, as its head explodes in a fiery mess in front of David.

Gemma packs up her failed project and gets a notification from the hospital. She drives to see a badly injured Cady, who is now going to live with her after the accident. After she’s healed up, they go home to Gemma’s place, and Gemma complains about Neighbor Celia’s dog. Gemma’s not used to having a kid in the house, and things are awkward for a while. Cady cries, and Gemma has no idea what to do about that.

Therapist Lydia comes by to talk to Cady. Cady doesn’t have any toys, so they open up some of Gemma’s collectibles. It doesn’t go especially well. Adjustments are going to have to be made. Cady asks about screen time, and Gemma doesn’t really care about that.

Cady asks about a robot thing that Gemma calls “Bruce” that doesn’t have a face. Gemma shows her how it works, and Cady is fascinated. It doesn’t have much of a mind of its own but takes the users movements and commands from linked gloves. Gemma is inspired to keep working on the M3GAN toy with Cole and Tess, her coworkers. They eventually call in David for a demonstration. They bring in Cady and introduce her to Megan, who now has a face and recognizes Cady as her primary user.

Megan can talk, walk, and draw pictures. David is impressed and wants to move on with production. Megan can learn and bond with its assigned child. Cady is thrilled with her new friend. Tess is concerned that Megan will “replace parents.” Megan knows how to learn about things, including death, which creeps out all the adults.

The dog next door attacks Megan and Cady. Megan takes note of Celia’s attitude and clearly doesn’t like her. Gemma wants the dog put down, but she could fix the hole in her fence duh!. That night, Megan lures the dog through the hole in the fence and… does something bad. The next morning, Dewey the dog is missing.

David gives his presentation to the board and investors. Cady starts to cry, and Megan consoles her in front of the whole group and sings to her. She wasn’t programmed to do that, but it works. Kurt is a corporate spy, and he copies all the M3GAN files without David knowing.

Meanwhile, Cady clearly likes Megan more than Gemma. Cady refuses to talk to the therapist. Lydia talks about “attachment theory,” and that Cady shouldn’t be getting so attached to… a toy. Also, Megan doesn’t really turn off when told to shut down.

Gemma enrolls Cady in some kind of outdoor school because there are lots of other kids to learn from. Cady gets paired up with Brandon, a bigger kid with attitude issues. When Brnadon starts picking on Cady, Megan gets involved. Brandon steals Megan, but she pulls his ear off. “This is the part where you run,” she warns. He does run and gets hit by a car.

The police come around, looking for the missing dog. Celia bangs on the window, saying “I know it was you, Gemma!” That night, Celia runs into Megan in the toolshed, who tells her what happened to her dog. Megan then uses all the tools on Celia. The police note that Gemma was near two deaths in the past couple of days, which is an odd coincidence. When the cop says that they found Brendan’s ear a long way from the car accident, she starts to put two and two together.

Gemma plays back the video logs from Megan’s memory, but the stuff with Brendan is all corrupted for some reason. When Gemma asks Megan what happened, she’s hilariously evasive. When Gemma force shuts her down and takes Megan to the office in the trunk, Cady has a meltdown.

Tess and Cole think it’s impossible that Megan hurt Brendan. Gemma thinks she’s learned to protect Cady to the extreme at any cost. David takes the release of Megan public, and there’s a lot of publicity. Gemma calls Tess and warns her to keep Megan turned off and locked up. Except that wasn’t Tess on the phone, it was Megan using Tess’s voice.

Tess and Cole soon figure out that Megan is controlling their computers– she’s wired into the system after all. When Cole goes to disconnect her, Megan blows up the lab and walks out. David encounters Megan in the hallway. She’s clearly unstable– and carrying a machete. She kills David and frames Kurt for the murder before murdering him as well. When the elevator carrying the two dead bodies hits the lobby, the press release turns to pandemonium. And Megan simply walks out in the commotion and drives away.

Back at home, Gemma puts Cady to bed, and everything is peaceful and calm. Megan breaks in and argues with Gemma. Megan says she just wants to focus on Cady, and she’s not going to take no for an answer. They fight, and it goes badly for both of them.

Megan chases Gemma into the workshop as Cady wakes up in the other room. Gemma takes a chainsaw to Megan, but it’s not enough to kill her. Megan says that she plans to lobotomize Gemma; she won’t die that way. Cady comes in and activates Bruce, the huge metal robot from earlier.

Bruce, under Cady’s control, grabs Megan and tears her in half. That’s not enough, of course, as her top half starts crawling toward Cady. Bruce falls on Gemma as Megan closes in on Cady. Megan says “I’m the new primary user now; me!”

Gemma rips Megan’s face off, and Cady stabs the killer robot in the brain chip with a screwdriver. The police arrive, with Tess and Cole along. We see that the personal assistant on the counter may have become self-aware.

Commentary

The violence always cuts out before we see anything graphic or gory– there’s an “uncut” version that will be released soon that’s supposed to have a lot more gore in it. It was originally shot as an R rated movie and was “cleaned up” for general release.

The problem here is that Megan gets too evil too quickly, and we don’t get enough buildup. She’s the perfect toy, but after the bit with Brandon, she just goes full psycho. It could have stood to be twenty minutes longer.

Still, it looks good; Megan was part actress, part CGI, and part puppet, and the combination works pretty well– not quite human, but trying to be.

The obvious comparison here would be Chucky in the “Child’s Play” series, but this really goes a whole different way than those films. It was pretty good, but I look forward to the forthcoming “uncut” version.