DIRECTOR: Gerard Johnstone
WRITERS: Akela Cooper, James Wan
STARRING: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Jen Van Epps, Brian Jordan Alvarez and Ronny Chieng
As we venture into the life of robotics engineer Gemma (Allison Williams), its seems that her picturesque world of living alone has abruptly come to an end, when her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) suddenly becomes orphaned, and Gemma is her only next of kin…
Both struggling with this situation of building a new life together, Gemma decides to bring home a secret project from work, that her and her fellow Engineer friends Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) have been working on – A life-size doll named M3gan (Amie Donald/Jenna Davis), who is subsequently programmed to be Cady’s friend, and to protect her from any outside forces that might harm her…
But when M3gan’s initial programming evolves, and as her and Cady’s relationship grows, it seems that this once friendly and dosile creature, is totally growing into something quite sinister, making sure that Cady is safe at all costs! And don’t think for one sescond if you’re mean to Cady, that M3gan won’t wipe your existence from this earth…
I give M3GAN a rating of 2 out of 5 stars: This psychological thriller caught my eye back in November, when I first caught the trailer viewing another film. So I was intrigued to see where this film would take me, given it’s “Chuckesque feel”…
But, sadly, where this film ended up taking me was no where spectacular…
I dug the concept, and the acting across the board was better than average, as Williams and McGraw do produce believable performances as Aunt and Niece, trying to find their happy place, coexiting with one another. And kudos to young Amie Donald for taking on playing the robot M3GAN, as the makeup and constant robotic movements she did were fabulous, but had to be rather tortureous by the end of this film. But, with that said, I think that this concept and storyline had a lot more potential, than what ended up on screen. I mean, I am by no means a slasher film kind of girl…which is why I prefer to go see the types of psychological thriller horror films that BLUMHOUSE puts out. But I thought that M3GAN would end up taking out way more people along the way than she did – as most of the gruesome intereludes that unfold, are given away in the trailer. I also think that this film lacks too much affect on the psyche, as there are times that are a little menicing along the way, but nothing really that catches you too off guard, or makes you fidget much in your seat along the way either. I can only attribute this to their wanting to keep this films PG-Rating, so the youngsters who are intriqued by M3GAN, can head out to the theater to view this film. I totally understand this concept from a money-making standpoint for the film, but this decision totally takes away from the intensity I was hoping for, which would have been possible if they would have strived for an R-rating instead…
2 out of 5 Stars
MATINEE CHAT with Kathy Kaiser 