The new horror hit was launched from the imagination of horror hitmaker James Wan (the Saw, Insidious, Conjuring franchises and all the spinoffs that followed), but “M3GAN” is a completely different film than most of what Wan has done before. This combination of sci-fi, thriller, horror and black comedy is actually a dark and terrifying satire that has something of Frankenstein in it. Just as Mary Shelley warned in her now more than 200-year-old story about the modern Prometheus that nothing good can come of people playing god and creating new creatures, the same will happen here.
Only this creature here is not a monster created by exhuming the body of a deceased murderer who was revived with the help of a lightning strike, but as we live in the times of the development of artificial intelligence and technology, it is now an AI autonomous doll. But just as Frankenstein’s monster got out of control even though the scientist’s intentions were good, the same thing will happen to M3GAN. Gemma (Allison Williams from “Get Out”) is a young roboticist working for a technology company in Seattle and her primary task is to develop toys for children that are intended to replace pets.
But Gemma’s ambitions are much bigger and she secretly develops a humanoid robot in the form of a doll the size of an eight or ten-year-old girl with artificial intelligence and her task is to help her little owner in her daily tasks and be her loyal partner. Right at the beginning of the film, Gemma’s sister and brother-in-law will be killed and Gemma will take custody of her nine-year-old niece Cady, and the girl will prove to be an excellent guinea pig for the development of M3GAN. And very soon Cady will bond with that humanoid doll and everything will seem idyllic at first. It will seem as if Gemma has managed to create what she wanted, a doll – a toy – a child-sized robot, and her superiors will think that they got a product that will sweep away the competition.
Of course, it won’t develop exactly as Gemma planned, because the protective doll will start to develop her own will more and more, and it will turn out that she has significantly different plans than those outlined by her creators. As soon as “M3GAN” appeared, comparisons with probably the most famous horror doll, namely Chucky from “Child’s Play”, began to be drawn, but the fact that in both films we have dolls with a murderous instinct, that is actually the only link. So even though the very idea of ”M3GAN” is quite hilarious and the screenwriter Akela Cooper and then the director Gerard Johnstone wisely inserted elements of black comedy, probably aware that any other concept would be a failure, it is a film that scares more on a subconscious, existentialist level. , but with classic horror violence and blood.
From the first scene when Cady is playing with a modern-day Tamagotchi in the car with her parents (or what was the name of that Japanese folly popular somewhere in the mid-nineties), a toy – a game that is a substitute for a pet, the viewer has to ask himself whether such a thing is possible. Especially when we know that children already spend a good part of their time with cell phones and computers, and it will especially start to look scary when we see M3GAN. A doll that will seemingly be the solution to all of Gemma’s problems, who is not exactly thrilled with the idea that she now has to take care of a nine-year-old girl and would rather she continue to spend her time developing artificial intelligence and creating robots.
M3GAN will also be a perfect solution for Cady because not only can she memorize an unlimited combination of information, but she is also her teacher, the babysitter who reminds her to wash her teeth or hands after feeding. She reads her bedtime stories, reminds her to eat, talks to her, and knows everything Cady really wants and needs. That is why it is not surprising that a girl who is still struggling with the trauma of losing her parents will instantly become dependent on that doll – robot and that this doll will become her only companion because she no longer needs anyone. But Wan and the team are smart enough to package such a dystopian high-tech story into a rather hilarious, fun and drinkable horror action for a wider audience and that concept worked even better than I expected.