Brief Story Line
Gemma (Allison Williams - Horizon Line, A Series of Unfortunate Events TV series etc) was a robotic engineer at a large toy company called Funki and was responsible to design the latest advanced toys in the market. Without the knowledge of her boss David Lin (Ronny Chieng - Wish Dragon, Trust etc), she was working on a new model of toy with Artificial Intelligence called M3GAN, together with her friends Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez).
When her niece Cady (Violet McGraw - Separation etc) unexpectedly had to move in with her, Gemma must realign her priorities between her job and taking care of Cady. Lucky for Gemma, M3GAN somehow was able to take over her "parenting" role and became very good friends with Cady. However, it did not take long before this attachment became dangerous.
So how would the story conclude? You can find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Earlier I thought that this movie would be the supernatural kind of horror, something like Chucky or Annabelle. But I guessed if I read more on the synopsis I would realize it was nothing like it. Anyway, the early part till the middle of the movie did not feel like a horror at all. In fact, it felt a bit like drama with a story that was surprisingly properly written. Not after more than half of the movie that we started seeing some horrifying scenes, though not totally scary type, which continued with some intense moments till the end.
The M3GAN (short for Model 3 Generation Android) here was actually quite convincing as a life-like android suitable for children to play. I have to applaud the makeup effects & special effects team plus Amie Donald who physically portrayed M3GAN and also Jenna Davis who provided the voice. All of them were instrumental in making it quite a joy to see. However, regardless of how good they were in creating M3GAN, I personally did not feel it to be terrifying. Yes it was a bit sinister but it did not create an eerie feeling.
I read somewhere that the film was having some reshoots to make it eligible for PG-13 rating instead of R rating. Even though it looked like a strategic way to ensure the movie was getting more tickets sold, I myself could not help to think if I would enjoy it more had it been R rated. I think the movie was lacking that bit of violence that would make it scarier. But I guess their move really paid off since it was quite successful commercially and it looked like the movie makers intended to create a sequel. Btw, there was no mid or post end credit scenes here, however there was an interesting final scene just before the closing credits started.
This movie was directed by Gerard Johnstone whose prior experience was mostly directing TV series and one movie titled Housebound. It was written by Akela Cooper (writer of Hellfest, Malignant and few series) and was based on the story by herself with none other than James Wan who served as the producer together with Jason Blum of the Blumhouse production house. So with those names, it was no wonder they could create a commercially successful horror film with relatively small budget. The cast here were generally OK especially Allison Williams and Violet McGraw who were not exactly new to horror genre (Williams played in Get Out while McGraw was part of the cast in The Haunting of Hill House TV series).
Overall to me this was an OK film. It was not exactly what I was looking for in a horror movie but it did have some suspense towards the end. Plus it lacked those scary scenes and had a rather predictable ending. Now I know that critics really enjoyed this one and I could understand it too. But as a casual audience, I would have loved to see more of those terrifying scenes. Let's hope if they do make a sequel, it would have the R rating.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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