Nazfea Solehah: Movie Review: M3GAN (2022)

M3GAN is a 2022 American science fiction horror film directed by Gerard Johnstone, written by Akela Cooper from a story by Cooper and James Wan (who also produced with Jason Blum), and starring Allison Williams and Violet McGraw, with Amie Donald physically portraying M3GAN and Jenna Davis voicing the character. Its plot follows the eponymous artificially intelligent doll who develops self-awareness and becomes hostile towards anyone who comes between her and her human companion.

Synopsis

A young girl named Cady and her parents are involved in a car accident, leaving Cady an orphan. Cady is sent to live with her aunt Gemma, a roboticist at the high-tech Seattle toy company Funki. Gemma is developing M3GAN (Model 3 Generative Android); a life-sized humanoid robot doll powered by artificial intelligence, designed to assist in caretaking duties and being a loyal companion to the child to whom it is assigned. After a faulty test before her boss David, Gemma is ordered to drop the project.

Gemma and Cady struggle to adapt to their new living situation, as Gemma is a workaholic by nature and doesn’t have time to bond with Cady. When Cady discovers Bruce, a motion capture robot that Gemma created, she expresses a wish for a similarly complex toy, which propels Gemma to complete the M3GAN project. The finished model is formally paired with Cady, and David becomes convinced of the project's potential for success after observing the pair. M3GAN exceeds expectations as a friend and largely takes over for parenthood duties and emotional support, to the point that Gemma's colleagues, and Cady's therapist Lydia, in particular, become concerned about Cady creating an extremely strong emotional attachment to M3GAN. In addition, being designed to self-improve and adapt, M3GAN starts operating more independently and targets anything that she deems a threat to Cady. She kills the dog of Gemma's neighbor Celia after it bites Cady. Later, she tears off the ear of Cady's bully Brandon and chases him before he trips and falls in the path of an oncoming car, which fatally runs him over.

After Celia aggressively confronts Gemma, Cady, and M3GAN, blaming them for her missing dog, M3GAN kills Celia by spraying her with garden chemicals and shooting her with a nail gun. Gemma becomes suspicious of M3GAN and attempts to check her video logs to see if she was involved in the deaths. When she finds the files corrupted or erased, Gemma turns M3GAN off and takes her to her colleagues Tess and Cole to fix her. Cady responds violently, lashing out due to her attachment to M3GAN. Gemma tries to apologize for her absence as a parent and tells Cady that M3GAN is a distraction from coping with the difficult loss of her parents, not a solution.

While M3GAN wins over Funki's investors and convinces them to release a worldwide campaign in advance of her release, Gemma, Tess and Cole decide to try to terminate M3GAN due to her volatile and violent tendencies. Tess and Cole attempt to shut down M3GAN while Gemma takes Cady home, but M3GAN attacks Cole by hanging him with a chain. While Tess frees Cole, M3GAN causes an explosion in their lab and then shuts off the alarm. On her way out of the building, M3GAN kills David and his assistant Kurt with the blade of a guillotine paper cutter in an elevator, staging it as a murder-suicide. She then steals a car and drives back to Gemma's house.

M3GAN confronts Gemma, adamant about taking over as Cady's sole parental figure. Gemma attempts to shut M3GAN down again, but M3GAN overpowers her and threatens to paralyze her so she will be unable to care for Cady. Watching the fight unfold, a horrified Cady uses Bruce to tear M3GAN apart.

However, M3GAN's head and arms remain active, and she attempts to kill Cady for the betrayal. Gemma exposes a processing chip in M3GAN's head, which Cady stabs with a screwdriver, rendering M3GAN's body lifeless.

With M3GAN seemingly destroyed, Gemma and Cady go outside as the police arrive with Tess and Cole. As they leave the house, M3GAN, having taken over Elsie, Gemma's virtual assistant and smart home operator, turns a camera to watch them.

Cast

Allison Williams as Gemma

Violet McGraw as Cady

Amie Donald as M3GAN

Jenna Davis as the voice of M3GAN

Jen Van Epps as Tess

Brian Jordan Alvarez as Cole

Jack Cassidy as Brandon

Ronny Chieng as David Lin

Amy Usherwood as Lydia

Lori Dungey as Celia

Stephane Garneau-Monten as Kurt

Arlo Green as Ryan

Kira Josephson as Ava

Review

Aku sebenarnya tak tahu nak pilih cerita apa semalam nak tengok dekat wayang. Jadi aku pilih cerita ni. Sebab aku tengok dia macam ala-ala cerita Chucky.

Cerita dia best jugak, tak adalah menakutkan macam cerita Chucky. Scene darah-darah pun tak adalah banyak sangat. Jadi aku boleh tengok tanpa rasa bersalah haha. Cuma ada scene keganasan sikit, macam pukul-pukul, tarik rambut macam tu lah. Sebab tu cerita ni aku rasa sepatutnya kena P18. Bukan P13.

Tapi mungkin sebab cerita ni tak ada unsur mencarut yang keterlaluan, aku rasa macam tak ada langsung, mungkin sebab itulah diorang letak cerita ni sebagai P13.

Ada sikit jumpscare, nasib baiklah tak terlalu kuat haha. Kalau tak, memang sakit jantung dah aku. Kesimpulannya, cerita ni aku bagi 7/10. Boleh lah untuk raso-raso. Aku faham perasaan Cady yang kehilangan mak ayah dan perlukan kawan. Kalau aku jadi Cady pun aku perlukan seseorang yang nak dengarkan kisah aku.

Jadi M3GAN dekat sini ambil peranan sebagai sahabat yang baik. Terharu sebab berjaya pujuk Cady daripada terus bersedih. Part ni, aku rasa sedih sikit. Terharu sebak pun ada. Cuma, M3GAN selama-lamanya tak boleh ambil peranan sebagai seorang manusia, sebab dia hanya robot. Dia tak ada perasaan.